


Kidney Privileges

by Anonymous_Introvert78



Series: Seventeen Hurt/Comfort [2]
Category: SEVENTEEN (Band)
Genre: Abusive Manager, Car Accidents, Emotional Hurt/Comfort, Here we go, Hurt Lee Jihoon | Woozi, Hurt/Comfort, Illnesses, Implied/Referenced Abuse, It Gets Worse Before It Gets Better, LET'S GET IT, Lee Jihoon | Woozi-centric, Major Illness, Organ Transplantation, Physical Abuse, Protective Dongsaengs, Protective Hyungs, medical inaccuracy
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2019-06-16
Updated: 2019-08-17
Packaged: 2020-05-12 21:50:30
Rating: Not Rated
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 19
Words: 26,766
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/19237780
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Anonymous_Introvert78/pseuds/Anonymous_Introvert78
Summary: ~~~~~~~~~~~It was just a sore throat.~~~~~~~~~~~





	1. Lee Jihoon

**Author's Note:**

> Song Recommendation:  
> "Love Scenario" by iKON (all revenue goes to Hanbin so stream NOW)

I’m writing a thirteen-part series! One story for each member.

I’m sorry there was such a huge gap between the first story and this one but when I wrote “Mine”, I wasn’t expecting to end up creating a series, but here we are! The first chapter will be up in a few days once I've finished posting "Ugly On The Outside" which is a Seokjin-Centric fic for BTS (go check that one out), so please anticipate it!

**TRIGGER WARNING!!!!!!**

This fic contains potentially triggering content such as physical and emotional abuse. It is just a sub-plot but quite a prominant one in the storyline so if there's a chance that it will offend or upset you then I urge you to consider whether or not this fic will be suitable for you. 

 

**There will be no major character death in this series.**

****

 


	2. 제 1 장

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Song Recommendation:  
> "Dorothy" by Super Junior-KRY

         To Jihoon, music was like breathing.  Every time a cadence chimed a perfect chord, his lungs inflated and every time two notes clashed in that perfectly dissonant way, his heart was soothed into reassurance. If he couldn’t play, produce or compose, then he wasn’t worth a fraction of what the others were.

Sure, he could sing, he could dance, he could even rap a little but everyone knew the main reason he was here was because of the songs he could pull from his ears. At least, that’s what everyone seemed to think he could do. In reality, it was much harder than that.

But he loved it. Because it was music. And music was like breathing.

So when his phone lit up on the table beside him, the entire wooden structure buzzing with the vibrations and jarring his elbow into a strange fuzzy sensation, he couldn’t help but curse whoever had dialled his number and interrupted his creative genius.

He glanced down, blinking slightly as his eyes adjusted to images that weren’t pixilated on a computer screen, and saw Jeonghan’s contact photo grinning back up at him.

“’Lo?” he croaked.

It was all he was capable of producing. His throat was raw, his head was pounding. It never seemed to be letting up and every day he awoke, it only felt worse.

“When are you coming home?” came the stern reply from the other end, crackling slightly with the bad reception, and Jihoon could envision his hyung sitting on the living room sofa in front of his laptop, watching the clock with his leg bouncing and his teeth biting his lip. “It’s almost one in the morning.”

“Soon.”

“How soon is soon?”

“I said soon, hyung!”

He hadn’t meant to snap, and the second Jeonghan petered into silence on the other end, he felt guilty. But he was tired, and his bones ached and his temples throbbed and all he could feel was exhaustion and irritation.  

“I’m sorry,” he murmured, pinching the bridge of his nose in the hopes that it would calm the marching band between his ears. “Manager-hyung says he wants the first draft of this song by tomorrow morning and it’s not ready yet.”

Jeonghan’s frustration could have been heard from Japan. Jihoon wanted to tell him to stop worrying, that he was fine, but he wasn’t sure that was the truth anymore.

He had the flu or something equally unpleasant and all he really wanted was to go home and sleep it off. But he had a job and a duty and if he didn’t do it then nobody else would.

“We need you healthy, Jihoon,” Jeonghan sighed and Jihoon nodded before his mind caught up with the realisation that his hyung couldn’t see him. “If we don’t have you then we’re practically fucked and you know it.”

Jihoon snorted. “Yeah, I do.”

“Then come home soon. Okay?”

“Okay, hyung.”

He ended the call and hesitated, just for a split second, before silencing the device and tossing it over his shoulder, listening to the soft thump it made as it hit the sofa cushions. He returned to the computer and slapped the headphones over his ears.

The idol life was hard. It was a nightmare, and if he let a simple cold get the best of him, he would be a disgrace to the industry. The others had fought through far worse and still come out with sweaty smiles and pats on the back. Just because he was the smallest, it didn’t have to mean he was the weakest.

It was just a sore throat. That’s all. Just a sore throat.

Because he couldn’t afford for it to be anything else.

 

~~~~~~~~~~~~~~

 

          Jihoon woke to the sensation of hot breath on his nose, a hand gently shaking his shoulder as whoever it was who dared disturb his slumber crouched down in front of him and whispered his name tentatively into the silence.

“Jihoon-hyung?”

He opened his eyes, suppressing a whine at the way the lights seemed to attack his sensory nerves. It hurt even worse than when he’d managed to stagger over from his chair by the computer and collapse onto the leather sofa on the other side of the studio just a few hours ago. He’d barely made it.

“Have you been here all night?”

Jihoon could guarantee that if it was any other day, Chan would have awoken him by pouring water over his face or playing some atrociously loud noise right in his ear, but he was thankful that the maknae seemed to picked up on how awful he was feeling and had decided to be gentle.

“Wha’ time ‘s’it?” he mumbled, wincing at the dull pain pulsating in his joints as he reached up to cover his mouth before he coughed a trillion germs all over Chan’s face.

“It’s eight in the morning,” the maknae responded and there was definitely a hint of worry to his expression now as he watched his hyung choke and splutter into a trembling hand, a thin sheen of sweat glistening on his forehead despite the way the blanket was pulled up to his chin. “We’ve just arrived for practise. Jeonghan-hyung told me to come find you.”

Jihoon groaned, hating how pathetic and weak he sounded with the rasp in his throat and the slight wheeze in his chest. The very last thing he wanted to do – the _very_ last – was spend half a dozen hours stretching his body to the limits.

He already felt like he was about to fall apart if he even thought about standing up and so the idea of leaping through the air, twisting, turning, pivoting, pumping, was literally sickening.

“Maybe you should go home, hyung,” Chan continued, taking a step back to give the smaller boy some space to sit up and brush his dampened fringe out of his bloodshot eyes. “You don’t look very well at all and it’s been going on for some while.”

He was right. And Jihoon should have listened. But being Jihoon, he didn’t.

It was too humiliating being told to rest by someone younger than him, let alone the maknae of the group. No matter how tempting the offer of a hot shower and a warm bed was.

“I’ve got it, Chan.”

He pushed off the sofa, hissing in irritation when his head spun and he wobbled ever so slightly in place. Chan’s hands shot out to steady him by the shoulders and he barely resisted the urge to shove him away in frustration.

“Hyung, this is the flu or something. You need to go home.”

Jihoon opened his mouth to protest one more time before he saw the look on his dongsaeng’s face. The pleading sense of desperation that seemed to pour from the eyes that he knew could be wicked and evil beyond imagination but still somehow managed to make themselves look like a puppy’s.

And he knew he’d never been able to resist that puppy.

“I’ll ask if I can skip out a little early,” he conceded finally, coming to a reluctant and painful compromise. “But I’m sticking around for the first few hours.”

There was a brief moment where the two of them stood there, toe to toe, eyes locked and gazes bordering on threatening before the final concluding sentiment was shot.

“I’m your hyung, Chan.”

“Fine,” came the disapproving huff as the maknae reached for the door handle. “But I’m telling Jeonghan and Seungcheol-hyung.”

Then he was gone before Jihoon could reach for his throat and choke the mischievous little devil they should have beaten the hell out of years ago.

He sank onto the sofa again, head in his hands and fingers combing through the sweaty roots as his breath hitched and he exploded into a coughing tsunami.

The sound was brutal, his vocal chords grating against each other and his diaphragm spasming painfully, and the water he leeched from the bottle his trembling fingers managed to find only added to the raging war inside his chest.

When it was finally over, he felt drained. Completely sapped of the energy he’d never had in the first place and all he wanted to do was keel over onto the leathery cushions and bury himself in fluffy blankets and squishy pillows for the rest of eternity.

But he was being paid to do a job, and that job did not include sleeping and feeling sorry for himself. So he fumbled for the box of aspirin he’d left on his desk the previous night, wincing when he tipped the last two pills into his palm before throwing back his head and swallowing them dry.

He’d have to ask the antsy new manager to get him some more. That would be a fun conversation.

Particularly as the man seemed to hate everyone and everything. Including Seungcheol. Especially Seungcheol. Like, he really, really hated Seungcheol.

Weeks later, Jihoon would look back on this reverie and kick himself for not questioning the motives behind the manager and the leader’s little “talks” that always seemed to put Joshua and Jeonghan on edge as they watched their hyung being ordered into another room.

He would hate himself for not noticing it sooner because if he had, maybe things wouldn’t have gone the way they did.  


	3. 제 2 장

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Song Recommendation:  
> "Let Me Know" by BTS

       The second he walked into the practise studio, all heads turned his way. His face was already flushed with fever but twenty-four eyes seemed to literally burn his skin as his ears reddened and he looked down at the floor in embarrassment.

But the moment of silence was over quicker than it began and everybody turned back to their conversations as they slowly stretched their muscles into preparation.

Jihoon shuffled over, rubbing the heel of his hand into his eye in the hope that it would alleviate the crushing agony in his head, and sank to the floor to join them.

He should have expected Jeonghan would be by his side in a matter of moments, contorting his leg beneath him to strain his hamstring and giving his brother an expression that bled concern and screamed ‘go home’.

“This isn’t healthy,” he muttered. “We can do without you for one day.”

“I’m fine,” Jihoon shot back without moving his gaze from the floor.

They couldn't send him home. It was too humiliating, too degrading. He wanted them to see that he was stronger than they thought he was. That he wasn't about to be defeated by a little cough and a sore head.

And the last thing he wanted was to hold everyone else up as they tried to wait for his drastically failing body to catch up. If they loaded him in a car and shipped him back to the dorm, that would be exactly what they were doing.

He had never been more thankful when Soonyoung rallied them all together, finger already groping for the iPod resting beside the speakers, because it meant that he couldn’t hear his hyung's exasperated and clichéd response.

But he did accept the hand that reached down towards him. He wasn’t sure he could have stood up without its support and when his eyes went glassy with a brief sensation of dizziness, he heard the mutter in his ear before he was ushered into position.

“It’s okay to be a little weak sometimes.”  

He didn’t understand what it was like to be Jihoon.

He didn’t feel the pressure of supporting the entire team on his shoulders. They relied on him for lyrics, composition, production, as though he were some superhuman mutant that needed no food or sleep. He wasn’t allowed to be weak because the second he was out of action, the whole group would flounder.

So when the first song was blasted through the speakers, he was right on the beat with what he hoped was perfect timing and precision.

He closed his eyes to help with the spinning of the world, the brightness of the lights and the horrific pang of nausea eating away at his gut. He kept dancing even when he heard his name being bellowed by Hyeomin at the front of the studio.

“Sharper, Woozi! I know you’re not feeling great but you’re too sloppy!”

Jihoon winced, putting everything he had into defining his movements as he stamped with more ferocity and spun faster than any of the others. Too fast.

He stumbled, throwing his arms out to the sides in the hopes that it would steady him before he connected with the ground. There was a hand, vice-like and strong, on his elbow and he registered Jun’s sturdy chest against his body as the taller boy leapt forwards to catch him.

The music was still playing and the others were still dancing, oblivious to what had just occurred, so when Jun whispered a concerned question in Jihoon’s ear, he merely shook his head to indicate that it was nothing and leapt straight back into the routine.

But it wasn’t even twenty seconds later when the urge to vomit reached its peak, and this time he had absolutely no way of swallowing it down.

His gag reflex was the strongest it had ever been, his diaphragm felt spastic and electrified, and he only just made it to the trashcan by the wall before his legs buckled and he collapsed to his knees, his throat making the most repulsive retching sounds as all that water he'd drunk that morning came rushing right back up again.

The song was finally cut off and he felt a hand rubbing gentle circles in his back, whispered questions echoing off the walls behind him, but all he could focus on was the disgustingly loud heaving of his contaminated stomach.

His throat burned and throbbed but the very little food he had managed to choke down in the last twenty-four hours was determined on making a return appearance.

He continued for a solid five minutes, driven almost to the point of tears at the pain and the suffering he was being forced to endure by some virus that seemed desperate to tear him to pieces from the inside out even as he begged for mercy, literally on his knees.

At some point, his body had run out of fluids to expel and he was just dry-heaving, choking on rancid air until finally his silenced cry for mercy was answered.

The hand was still on his back, surprisingly really, considering that he was drenched in sweat and could feel the way his thin T-shirt was sticking to his dampened skin. He felt disgusting, both inside and out.

“You finished?” came the gentle voice in his ear.

Jihoon nodded, bringing a quivering hand up to swat at the excess bile still dripping from his chapped lips. He collapsed sideways, pressing his back into the wall and closing his eyes, relishing in the feeling of cold concrete against his scalding scalp.

“I hate to say I told you so,” Seungcheol said, but there was no mocking in his tone. Just concern and exasperation, and Jihoon let out a non-committal grumble in return. “I’ll get one of the company cars to take you home.”

Jihoon was about to resist, protesting with every last snippet of energy forging through his exhausted body, but somebody else beat him to it.

“Are you sure you can’t push through?” came Hyeomin’s curt question from above him, the unnecessarily loud decibel pounding against his ear drums.

“He’s not pushing through,” Seungcheol snapped back and Jihoon opened his eyes to see his leader crouched in front of him, glaring up at the manager who stood to the side, arms folded in disapproval. “He’s going home.”

There was some part of Jihoon that was screaming inside, begging his hyung to just let him take a ten minute break and then get straight back into the practise session, but the rest of him couldn’t suppress the sigh of relief when Hyeomin finally conceded and he was permitted to leave the building.

He was too weak and disorientated to notice that it was Wonwoo who snaked an arm around his waist and levered him off the floor.

He was too wrapped up in his own misery to see the way Hyeomin’s fingers fastened around Seungcheol's elbow.

He only just caught the flinch Joshua made towards the pair before he was swatting at the helping hands in fevered protest.

“Do you need someone to come with you?” Seungkwan muttered as he handed him his jacket.

Jihoon shook his head. He didn’t want anyone else skipping out because of him. He’d caused enough trouble already.

“I’m good.”

He wasn’t.  


	4. 제 3 장

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Song Recommendation:  
> "Love Loop" by Got7

Jihoon hadn’t been properly asleep, only lying on his stomach with his face mushed into the pillow and his mind half aware, which was why he opened his eyes the second he heard the faint clink of china against wood.

Seungkwan smiled down at him, wincing slightly as he whispered an apology. Jihoon could smell the soup on the bedside table and his fasting stomach growled in response, invisible fingers reaching for the steamy aroma of mushrooms and meat, and he gave a groan as he pushed himself into a sitting position.

“How you feeling?” Seungkwan asked as he stooped to pick up the trashcan Jihoon had positioned at the side of the bed, a thin layer of bile and other sour-smelling fluids sloshing about in the bottom from where he’d spewed his guts up a few hours ago.

“Better,” Jihoon lied as Seungkwan disappeared into the bathroom to pour the contents of the trashcan down the toilet before returning to his hyung’s side and helping him sit up slightly with a few more pillows behind his back. 

The kid didn’t need to know that the nausea may have died but the headache was still omni-present and vicious as anything. 

“How was practise?”

Seungkwan gave a sigh, returning the sick bucket to its original position before perching on the end of the bed so he could talk to Jihoon while the elder sipped timidly at the meal that had undoubtedly been whipped up by Jun or Jeonghan.

“Hyeomin had to take Soonyoung-hyung to the hospital.”

Jihoon blanched, almost spilling the bowl all down his front as his eyebrows shot up towards his sweaty hairline and his heart leapt into his throat. “Why? What happened?”

“Oh, no, he’s fine,” Seungkwan reassured him, holding out his hands to soothe the sudden onset panic. “His shoulder dislocated again and he couldn’t get it back in so Hyeomin said he had to get checked out. It’s probably nothing. He’ll just have to sit out of practise for a few days. Jeonghan-hyung seemed more worried than anyone else. He wouldn’t let Hyeomin take him unless he could come, too.”

Jihoon swore under his breath, returning the soup bowl to the bedside table and flopping back against the pillows with his face in his hands. 

He had been hoping – secretly praying – that he would be able to have one more day off. Just to make sure that he was fully recovered and recuperated. But now that Soonyoung was out, too, even if it was only temporary, they couldn’t afford another loss.

“We’re starting to get a little worried, hyung,” Seungkwan pushed gently, reaching out to squeeze Jihoon’s foot through the bed covers. “You haven’t been right for a while and it doesn’t look like it’s getting better. You should probably go to a doctor.”

“Seungkwan, I’m f ---”

“No, don’t say you’re fine, hyung,” Seungkwan interrupted with a little huff of frustration and a droop in his shoulders. “You always say that and this time, it’s not true. You might have tonsillitis or mono or something else that needs antibiotics for it to get better. The longer you leave it, the worse it will get.”

Jihoon knew he was right. He knew that a flu like this needed checking out, just in case it was something that needed a few pills popping before it was properly conquered. But there was a fear niggling away inside of him. A horrible, horrible fear that kept whispering every last scenario – no matter how impossible – in his ear.

That maybe this wasn’t just the flu or tonsillitis or mono. That maybe it was something much worse. And the longer he went on ignoring it, the longer he could deny the possibility that he was really very sick. It just didn’t feel right.

“How did practise go?” he asked instead, trying to draw attention away from the subject and onto something else so that he wouldn’t have to see that young, frightened face in front of him.

Seungkwan snorted. “At least think of something you haven’t already asked when you’re trying to avoid the mother-henning."

Jihoon frowned, eyebrows furrowed in confusion as he tried to make sense of what Seungkwan had just said, but before he could speak up and voice his bemusement, his little brother was already interrupting him with a tired sigh.

"Are you going to eat that or not?"

He pointed at the bowl which was no longer steaming as nicely as it had been when it’d first arrived, and Jihoon could tell the tempting smell was starting to drive him a little crazy. 

So he shook his head and gestured for Seungkwan to take it, watching as the younger boy scooped it up, gave him another disapproving order to go see a doctor, and left the room.  

Jihoon lay there, awkwardly propped up on his pillows, for several more moments while he gathered his wits about him and tried to breathe through the nausea accosting his intestines. 

Only when he’d sat slumped against the headboard, slowly filling and emptying his lungs with his eyes closed and his fingers massaging his temples, did he reach for the notebook on the floor.

He was already behind with producing and composing. Hyeomin had asked for three finished songs by the end of this week and he only had two and a half. Even Seungcheol had told him he needed to get on with it if he didn’t want the manager on his back.

It wasn’t good enough. It needed to be better. He needed to be stronger.

He couldn’t let some puny little virus bring both him and his entire team down.

So he downed half a litre of water, suppressing the urge to gag and retch into the newly-emptied bin beside the bed, and turned every last smidgen of his wavering attention to the paper and pen that sat before him.

To him, music was like breathing. Lyrics flowed with ease and melodies practically wrote themselves. Music was like breathing because he didn’t even need to think about it to formulate its existence. It just came.

But now he was wondering why he’d forgotten how to inhale.


	5. 제 4 장

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Song Recommendation:  
> "Badbye" by VIXX

          The following day was worse. His nose was clogged to the point where his mouth had to remain permanently open – like a fish gaping for water – just so that he could breathe. 

His joints were so stiff that he could barely lift his head and if it wasn’t for the alarm clock’s incessant screeching on the other side of the room, he would have rolled over and gone straight back to sleep.

But it was clear from the lack of movement that Mingyu wasn’t prepared to get up, so Jihoon rolled off the mattress with a barely-suppressed whine of pain as his stomach did a backflip and his vision swam in front of him. 

He waited for the blinking lights to die before silencing the sirens and sinking onto the floor by the wall with his head in his hands.

And that was where he remained until Mingyu garnered the strength and motivation to rise from the dead, hair tousled and eyes puffy.

They exchanged a full ten seconds of indistinctly concerned grunting before showering, changing and trudging downstairs to grab a slice of toast before Hyeomin sounded the horn on the road outside, signalling that the company cars had arrived and were waiting impatiently to take them to the studio.  

Jihoon sat shrivelled into his coat in the corner of the backseat with his headphones slapped over his ears to block out the shrieking from the maknae line in front of him. 

He stuffed his cheeks full of antihistamine and painkillers, chugging water in between, before applying the nasal spray and popping in a breath mint to round it all off.

It was only once he’d finished that he realised Soonyoung was staring at him with raised eyebrows, his shoulder strapped up in a sling he had been very frustrated to find out he would be wearing for the next seven days.  

“I’m fine,” he grumbled, pulling his hood further down over his eyes and leaning against the window to wallow in his world of solitude until they got there.  

But then it only deteriorated.

A small mercy came in the form of Hyeomin requesting that Jihoon go and help the HipHop unit record their newest upcoming track. 

If he didn’t dislike the manager so much for his lack of sympathy and inconsiderately blunt comments, he would have got down and kissed his feet.

He hadn’t been dancing flat out, only letting his body mimic the movements the others were performing, and considering they knew how awful he was feeling, they made no comment on it. 

But the lights had been dancing in front of his eyes and his head had been feeling heavy enough to crush his spinal column into a coil of dislocated vertebrae.

Anything was better than puking his guts up in front of the entire team again, or even worse, collapsing completely. So he thanked the heavens as he lowered himself into the chair outside the recording studio and watched as Wonwoo entered the booth. 

He had to restrain himself from yelling at Seungcheol, Hansol and Mingyu as they laughed raucously from behind him, driving invisible nails into his skull with their deafening hyperactivity.

“You know your part, right?” he called out to Wonwoo, receiving a thumbs up in return as Hyeomin settled in the chair beside him. “Alright, let’s do this.”

He pressed play, wincing slightly when the music kicked in full-force and blasted his eardrums through the headphones. He knew the song like the back of his hand, he’d written it after all, but for some reason he now hated its sound. 

Its beat was boring and far too loud, the backing vocals that had already been recorded were blending together unpleasantly and the build-up to the bridge was almost painful.

And then Wonwoo started rapping the wrong part.

“Stop!” Jihoon called out, ceasing the music and sighing in frustration as he watched the confused boy in the booth stutter to a halt and look up at him in confusion. “I thought you said you knew it.”

“I do!” Wonwoo shouted back, affronted and offended to have been cut off so abruptly. “What’s wrong?”

“You were singing the wrong part.”

“No, I wasn’t.”

“You think I don’t know my own song, Wonwoo?”

“Jihoon,” Seungcheol spoke up from behind, a sturdy hand resting on Jihoon’s shoulder. “Wonwoo was right.”

The smaller boy looked up at him, brow furrowed in bewildered irritation. Had they changed the parts behind his back? He was certain that section just before the chorus had been Hansol’s. That’s how he had written it, right?

“He’s not,” he muttered as he pulled out his phone and started searching for the song’s original score.

But Wonwoo had been right. That part was his. It always had been. 

Jihoon blinked down at his friend’s name stamped over the top of the lyrics and frowned as his heart rate began to build. 

How had he forgotten his own song? He had never done that in his life. He even remembered the ones he’d written back before their debut.

“Jihoon, I think you should go back home,” Seungcheol spoke up and for the first time since he’d started feeling sick, Jihoon agreed. 

If anything, he wanted to go to a doctor. There was definitely something wrong.

“No,” Hyeomin interrupted, receiving an affronted glare from the leader in return. “We need him for this. Finish recording and if he’s still whining at the end of it, then he can go crying back to bed.”

“Hyung …” Mingyu started just as Wonwoo finally emerged from the booth, unable to differentiate what was going on from within those soundproof walls. “He’s not whining. He’s sick.”

“No, Mingyu, it’s fine.”

Jihoon did not want Mingyu standing up for him. Or any of the others, for that matter. 

Hyeomin was right. He was whining and complaining far too much, impeding their schedules and slowing them all down. The least he could do for them was finish their recording before he abandoned their hard efforts for the second day in a row.

“Let’s just finish the song.”

The others obeyed his request without further protest but he didn’t miss the irritation that laced Hyeomin’s expression as he glowered at the producer out of the corner of his eye, and he would have been blind if he hadn’t seen the concern in the nervous glances his fellow members sent over their shoulders every now and then.

He knew it was ridiculous. He knew he should be focusing solely on all the effort and emotion Hansol was putting into his verse, pumping the air with his fist every time he enunciated a syllable with his eyes closed to allow him to be completely alone with his music, but no matter how hard he tried, he could not shake the terrible crushing feeling that a storm was rolling in.

His mind was playing tricks on him. It listed every possible disease without even knowing the proper symptoms of any of them. 

But as the minutes dragged on where he said nothing, just letting the HipHop unit perform in their own special way without correction or constructive criticism, he felt his energy draining like water would in a bath.

And by the time Mingyu had returned the headphones to their perch on top of the microphone stand, Jihoon wasn’t even sure if he could lift his head anymore. 

He just ached all over. There was no other way to describe it. He just ached.

“Please let me go home,” he whispered in Seungcheol’s ear as they got up to leave the studio, hating how weak and pathetic it made him sound. “Just for a few hours. Let me go home.”

Seungcheol looked down at him, eyes wide and worried, as his hand reached out for his dongsaeng’s shoulder and he nodded. “Of course. I’ll take you right now.”

“Mingyu-hyung and I will do it,” Hansol interjected, slotting himself into the conversation with an arm around Jihoon’s waist. “We’re done for today but you have that meeting with the management.”

Jihoon would have preferred Seungcheol. The thought of being cared for and coddled by anyone younger than him was nothing short of embarrassing. 

But he had now reached the point of tears, blinking the burning sensation from his eyes, as he silently pleaded with God in heaven to just let him rest.

“Okay, call me when you get home,” Seungcheol decided, giving each of their shoulders a squeeze before he jogged off down the corridor to answer Wonwoo’s shout.

 

~~~~~~~~~~~~~

             Jihoon staggered to the bathroom the moment the front door was opened. 

He locked himself in, ignoring Mingyu’s concerned query from the other side as he braced both hands against the sink and turned on the cold tap full-force. 

The water slipped through his fingers as he cupped them beneath the faucet but there was still enough to splash onto his face.

It felt heavenly. A freezing fountain on his burning body. His stomach flipped uncomfortably and he pressed a hand over his shirt in an attempt to calm the maelstrom within. 

Until he felt something warm trickling down his legs.

He looked down, only just managing to process how horrified he felt before his entire body swayed and he reached out for the shower curtain to steady him but his fingers never found purchase.

He didn’t even remember hitting the ground.


	6. 제 5 장

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Song Recommendation:  
> "That's Okay" by D.O. (Exo)

         “He likes seaweed soup, right?” Hansol asked as Mingyu joined him in the kitchen, having given up on his soft callings from behind the bathroom door as it was clear his hyung was not going to reply.

“Yeah, I think so.”

“I’ve never made any,” Hansol admitted, pulling Jun’s recipe book from the shelf and flicking dumbly through the pages as though a sign would just pop out of nowhere to tell him where to look. “But hey, first time for everything.”

“I’m going to book an appointment with the doctor,” Mingyu announced suddenly, shocking himself with his own decisiveness. 

It was usually their management company who made such phone calls but he was almost certain Hyeomin would strongly oppose and it would be clear to anyone now that Jihoon needed some kind of antibiotic.

“Okay. But I think you should ---”

Hansol was cut off by the soft thud that filtered through the wall to their left.

They froze, eyes locked as they spoke without words, asking the same question and receiving the same answer in return.

_Did you hear that?_

_I definitely heard that._

They didn’t run. Running would mean they were admitting how scared they were. Instead, they walked, brisk and speedy and tense all over, until they reached the bathroom door. 

Nothing looked wrong with it, although Mingyu didn’t know if he expected there to be a gigantic X daubed in blood on the perfect paintwork or something similar.

He knocked, short and sharp, with Hansol’s hand braced on the doorframe beside him.

“Jihoon-hyung?”

There was no reply, and now Mingyu was starting to panic.

“Jihoon-hyung?”

A thump. A soft one. Not nearly as loud as the sound that had drawn them from the kitchen with thudding hearts, nerves on edge and hairs sticking straight upright. It was just a little thump, like someone was banging a foot against a floor or a fist against a wall in the hopes that his dongsaengs would realise he couldn’t speak to them but desperately needed them.

“Jihoon-hyung, open the door!” Hansol shouted, grappling with the handle and shaking it as though he could somehow intimidate the lock into sliding. “Open the door!”

“Move,” Mingyu ordered and his little brother dived to the side to make way for his hyung’s gigantic body slamming into the structure.

There was a splintering crash as the catch snapped off and shards of wood were expelled in all directions. The momentum sent Mingyu staggering, his knees buckling slightly with surprise and he threw out his arms to catch himself on the sink. 

Only when he’d managed to recover his composure, accepting that he would have to pay for a new door, did he look down at who was sitting slumped against the bathtub.

Jihoon’s body was angled in a way that both looked terrifyingly limp and horribly uncomfortable. 

He was kind of half sitting up but his legs were splayed out in front of him, the darkened denim of his jeans clinging to the insides of his thighs. His skin was the colour of the bath that stood behind him: the very definition of white itself. And he was crying.

Hansol was already next to him, holding his hand and trying to tell him that it was okay but Mingyu wasn’t sure Jihoon was listening. 

His eyes were closed, his face screwed up and the fingers that weren’t entangled in Hansol’s were clutching at his hair, tugging violently in what seemed like a desperate attempt to lessen whatever pain he was in.

“Hyung …” Mingyu whispered as he stepped gingerly over the puddle spreading across the tiles and knelt down on his tiniest brother’s other side. “Hyung … I …”

He didn’t know what to say. He didn’t know what to do. There was something very, very wrong here, and he had no idea how to act sensibly without destroying what little dignity Jihoon had left. He wondered – and he hated himself for it – if he should just call an ambulance and let them deal with this.

But then Jihoon opened his eyes and looked up at him with so much fear in those watering wells and Mingyu felt his heart being ripped apart inside of his chest.

“What’s happening to me?”

“I don’t know, hyung,” Mingyu admitted, his mind whirring at a billion miles an hour as he caught Hansol’s eyes and saw his own terror reflected back at him. 

Jihoon never cried. Not in front of them, at least. Only ever in front of the other hyungs. 

“But we’re going to find out. And you’ll be okay.”

He looked around frantically, hoping that some magic wand would just miraculously procure itself out of thin air that he could wave once and watch Jihoon’s pain dissipate in a matter of seconds. But alas, in this day and age, such things were unlikely.

“Mingyu …” Jihoon sobbed, reaching up to fist his hand in his dongsaeng’s shirt and Mingyu almost burst into tears.

He had never been responsible for one of his hyungs like this. He had never seen that expression in Jihoon’s face and the fear in Hansol’s eyes as they both looked to him for comfort and solution. No one else was going to give it.

“Hansol,” he choked out, disgusted by the crack in his voice as he reached for one of the towels on the railing. “Go and call the company car to come back here and take us to the hospital.”

Hansol faltered, halfway between leaping to his feet to obey and debating whether or not to contradict. “Do we not need an ambulance?”

“No,” Mingyu shot back, decisive and strong. 

He didn’t want to give Jihoon anymore reason to panic. At this moment, his hyung was conscious and breathing and therefore he did not need an ambulance. 

“Just go and do it, Hansol. Everything’s going to be fine.”

Hansol was scrambling out of the room without another word, his frightened voice travelling down the corridor from where he was pleading with the company driver down the phone. Mingyu could tell the kid was trying not to portray just how fearful he was but the hitches in his breath and the cracks in his words were a dead giveaway.

He wrapped Jihoon’s trembling body in the towel, trying not to think too hard about how humiliated and uncomfortable his hyung would be feeling at that moment, and hefted him off the floor without so much as a grunt. He was light as air. Even lighter than usual.

“You’re going to be fine, hyung,” Mingyu whispered as he slipped out of the bathroom, leaving the puddle of bodily fluids on the floor for someone else to clean. “It’s going to be fine.”

Jihoon wrapped his arms around his neck, burying his nose in the taller boy’s shoulder and continuing to sob in silence.

He was terrified. It would have been clear even to someone who didn’t know him that he was losing his mind with fear. 

They had all thought it was just a virus or some kind of infection that a few days in bed would clear right up but something was wrong. Mingyu could feel it, Hansol could feel it and Jihoon could definitely feel it.

Something was wrong.

“He said he’s outside!” Hansol called, already stuffing his arms into his jacket as he looked up to see Mingyu carrying their very sick hyung towards the front door.

The two youngest locked gazes, conferring without words what they both knew they had to do: stay calm, don’t panic, show Jihoon-hyung that there’s nothing for him to worry about, because everything is going to be fine.

Mingyu didn’t bother with shoes. He wouldn’t have been able to find them without putting Jihoon down and that was something he was not prepared to do in this moment where his hyung was so vulnerable, so he just ploughed right into the winter air and stormed down the pathway to where the company vehicle was waiting.

Hansol skirted around him to open the door, his fingers slipping on the handle several times before he found a grip firm enough to pull, and Mingyu slid into the backseat with Jihoon in his lap, combing his fingers through his hyung’s sweaty hair and whispering meaningless comforts in his ear.

“We’re going to the hospital, hyung,” he murmured over the sound of Jihoon’s panicked breaths. “We’re going together and Seungcheol-hyung will meet us there and the doctors are going to look after you. You’ll be fine, hyung. I promise. You’ll be fine.”

He didn’t speak what his mind was adding to the end of his sentences;

_I’m hoping the doctors can look after you. I think you’ll be fine, hyung. I wish I could promise. But I can’t. So please be fine._


	7. 제 6 장

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Song Recommendation:  
> "Sickness" by Vernon (Seventeen) ft. Eunwoo (Pristin)

“I’m here!” was the very first thing Seungcheol said as he burst through the door, crossing the private hospital room in four strides and enveloping Jihoon in his arms. “I’m here now. It’s okay. I’m here.”

But it sounded like the words were bringing more comfort to him than they were to his dongsaeng. 

Jihoon was just sitting there on the edge of the bed in the hospital gown they’d given him, eyes fixated on his shoes as his fingers picked absently at the band aid stuck to the inside of his elbow from where they’d taken his blood for one of a billion-or-so tests.

Mingyu was sitting beside him, one long arm ensnaring his shoulders in as reassuring a grip as he could and Hansol had only stopped pacing when the door had been thrown open to reveal their leader and their manager framed on the threshold.

“What happened?” Hyeomin barked and Seungcheol released Jihoon from his embrace to give the unfriendly man a reproachful glare. “Was all this really necessary?”

“Of course, it was necessary,” Hansol snapped back, arms folded over his chest and jaw set in fury. “He fucking collapsed. What did you want us to do? Just leave him on the bathroom floor?”

Jihoon winced at the bluntness in his little brother’s speech, embarrassed to have his fragility laid out for the entire world to see but inordinately thankful that Hansol had avoided a certain few details about the last few hours.

Hyeomin sucked a breath in through his teeth, averting his gaze from the members huddled around the bed where Jihoon sat, looking so unbelievably small with his eyes still red and swollen. 

Seungcheol ignored him and once again turned his full attention to the boy he wished he had frogmarched to a doctor at least a week ago.

“Has anyone spoken to you yet?” he whispered, eyes flickering between Jihoon and Mingyu and occasionally up to Hansol as the youngest continued to glower at their manager. “Do you know anything?”

Jihoon shook his head, still avoiding all eye contact as Mingyu clarified from beside him.

“They’ve done blood tests and stuff like that but we’re still waiting for the results. He didn’t come by ambulance and his vitals have been stable throughout so they’re not treating it like an emergency.”

Jihoon wanted to argue. He wanted to march out into the receptionist area and yell at the top of his lungs,  _ “This is an emergency. Can’t you see how sick I am?”  _ but he knew that considering they were in a hospital, he was probably one of the healthiest patients on the corridor.

Seungcheol’s hands were on his shoulders and he could hear the leader taking a deep breath as though preparing himself for some inspirational and unoriginal speech about keeping faith and having hope, but he was spared the torture by the arrival of a white-coated woman with winged glasses and a withered expression.

Everybody looked up, expectant eyes pleading for answers. Even Hyeomin looked vaguely concerned as he raised his head from where he was leaning against the wall.

“Lee Jihoon?” the woman asked curtly and Jihoon nodded tentatively, digging the tips of his fingers into his eyes to try and rid them of residual tears.

Mingyu tightened his grip on him and Seungcheol sat down on his other side, all of them tense and terrified for what was to come. 

It could be anything. Some kind of flesh-eating bacteria, organ failure, something degenerative … maybe even cancer. The thought made Jihoon want to throw up.

“Your blood tests revealed that you’ve contracted a bacterium named streptococcal pyogenes. More commonly known as strep throat.”

Jihoon blanched, his entire body spasming with whatever emotion doused his every pore in ice. Strep throat? As in … a glorified cold? That’s all this was? 

He’d thought it was serious. He’d thought it was going to kill him. The idea was almost laughable now. All that drama, all that panic, all those humiliating tears and it was just a sore throat.

Beside him, the others seemed to just deflate. Hansol was even grinning, brushing his fringe out of his eyes with his lips stretched wide and his head gently shaking from left to right as he chuckled softly to himself. 

Hyeomin, on the other hand, was slightly less amused.

“So all of this was for nothing,” he snapped, throwing his hands up in the air to emphasise his frustration. “Woozi, get your clothes and get changed. We’re going straight back to the dorm before somebody recognises us. There’ll be uproar if any of you get spotted in a hospital.”

He was already storming towards the door when the doctor spoke up, edgy voice rising above the relief that was filtering through the four bodies bundled together on the bed.

“Actually, sir, I’m afraid things have gotten a little more serious.”

Seungcheol looked up from where he’d buried his nose in Jihoon’s hair and Mingyu’s throat made a tiny – barely audible – squeaking noise. 

Jihoon didn’t speak. He wasn’t sure if he even could.

“But …” Seungcheol started, looking nervously between the doctor and the tiny body he had his arm around. “You said it was just strep throat. That means he can just have some antibiotics and we can take him home, right?”

“I’m afraid not.”

_ Oh, God. _

“When caught early enough, strep throat can be cured within just a few weeks,” the doctor continued, glancing down at the clipboard in her hands. “However, when gone untreated, the infection can spread and cause some unexpected and sometimes serious complications.”

_ This isn’t real. It’s a joke. I’m not that sick. It’s just a sore throat. _

“In Mr Lee’s case, these complications have presented in the form of poststreptococcal glomerulonephritis. In other words, his kidneys have been compromised to the point where they can no longer function effectively. This is why he’s been suffering lapses of memory, a lack of control over his bodily functions and fainting spells.”

_ It’s just a sore throat. It can’t be anything else. It’s just a sore throat. _

“So what does that mean?”

“We’ll start you on haemodialysis three times a week, Mr Lee, to cleanse your blood of the proteins and waste products that your kidneys are no longer able to remove. I can’t tell you exactly how long you’ll need to undergo treatment so we’ll take things as they come and keep you on dialysis until your kidneys are functioning properly again.”

_ It was just a sore throat. _

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> And the morale of the story, kids? DO NOT IGNORE IT WHEN YOUR BODY TELLS YOU YOU'RE NOT OKAY!!!!


	8. 제 7 장

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Song Recommendation:  
> "Blue" by Ha Sungwoon

Dialysis sucked.

Not only was it deeply uncomfortable, his stomach and calves overcome with cramps every time he sat in that chair with his lyric book on his lap and his body connected up to this gigantic machine, but it was also infuriatingly inconvenient.

Three times a week he was shipped up to the hospital to sit, bored out of his mind, for four hours while he watched his blood snaking through the left tube, disappearing into the machine, and then coming back out the other side to take the right tube back into his body. 

It didn’t look any different. He didn’t understand what was so wrong with it.

And the valve was one of the worst things he had ever endured. When they’d put it in, he’d held onto Jeonghan’s hand so tightly that his hyung’s fingers had turned purple, but nothing could have distracted him from the sensation of those needles burrowing into the skin just below his collarbone.

But the worst part out of everything was that Hyeomin refused to let him rest.

Jihoon would have given his right arm if it meant he could continue to dance with the others, write songs and practise until he was dead on his feet without feeling like he was about to collapse from exhaustion at any given moment, but the manager had expressed his opinion the moment he’d been let out of the hospital.

_ “It’s your own fault things got this far. You’re already dragging the entire group so the least you can do is continue to pull your weight.” _

And it was torture. He was so tired. All the time. And everybody was so worried about him. All the time. 

He would wake up sometimes in the middle of the night, muscles twisting excruciatingly, to see Mingyu sitting on his bed with concern written all over his puffy face. 

And Jeonghan was always hovering. And Seungcheol was always stressed. And Jihoon was always tired.   

But if he’d thought that their worst problem was his steadily declining health and consistent absence from rehearsals, he’d had another thing coming. 

And when he found out what had been going on behind closed doors and when the rest of them had their backs turned, he hated himself to the core.

~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~

        Dance practise had ended for the day and Jihoon only just made it to the corner of the room before his legs crumpled underneath him and he made a very unpleasant landing on the polished floors.

Hyeomin had been on his back for hours, yelling that he needed to be sharper, stronger, less … pathetic, and now he had pushed himself to breaking point. 

Soonyoung had tried to defend him several times, his courage having returned full fledge with the regeneration of his healed arm, and he had wasted no time in telling Hyeomin exactly what he thought of his brutal motivation techniques but it made no difference.

Jihoon stretched out over the bags, his tiny body easily cushioned atop thirteen rucksacks, and allowed his head to loll exhaustedly to the side. Fresh air had never felt so wonderful.

One by one, the others filtered from the room to head to studios or recording booths and Jihoon hadn’t realised he’d fallen asleep on the polyester pile until he awoke almost an hour later to a virtually empty room.

Joshua and Jeonghan were the only ones left, facing the mirror as they slowly hummed the latest song under their breaths and walked themselves through the choreography to further ingrain it into their minds.

Jihoon rolled onto his side and watched them through heavy-lidded eyes. They were good dancers. Vastly underrated if anyone asked him. 

He enjoyed observing their softened movements as they marked each step to conserve their energy as much as possible while still managing to hit every single beat in their self-produced accompaniments.

Then the door burst open and everything went to hell.

Seungcheol staggered in, his face flushed and breathing heavy as he clutched his left arm to his chest. 

The other two both whipped around at the sudden entry and the second they saw the agony written in every feature of their leader’s face, they were lunging forwards to catch him before his knees buckled.

Jihoon wanted to get up. Desperately. He longed to run for his hyung and ask him what was so wrong that he would be in so much pain. But he was just too exhausted. So he watched and listened and at some point, he realised that the older three had no idea he was still in the room.

“What happened?” Jeonghan was saying as he reached to grab Seungcheol’s shoulder and withdrew at once at the choked cry of agony he elicited. “What’s wrong?”

“It hurts,” Seungcheol gasped out, sagging against Joshua’s body with his eyes screwed shut and his chest heaving with terrifying frequency. “It hurts … It hurts … It hurts …”

“Lie down,” Joshua ordered, cupping his hand around the back of his leader’s head and lowering him onto the floor. 

From where Jihoon was concealed, he heard a sharp intake of breath and another shout of pain. 

“Fuck … It’s dislocated.”

“Holy shit, Cheol. What did he do to you?”

“We should call Soonyoung. He pops his shoulder back in every other day.”

“No!” Seungcheol wheezed, the heels of his feet digging into the floor as though he could transfer his pain into the wooden panels. “Don’t call him. Don’t call any of them. They can’t know. You know they can’t know.”

“Okay, hospital, then.”

“Shua, that’s not possible. He’ll find out.”

“Then what the fuck do you want to do?” Joshua yelled and now Jihoon was only staying put because he knew that if he revealed his presence, the others would immediately start lying to cover up whatever it is they had clearly been hiding for a very long time.

“Put it back in,” Seungcheol ordered, his good hand reaching out to snag onto the front of Jeonghan’s shirt. “Please, Han … it hurts so much … please …”

The desperation in his friend’s voice broke Jihoon’s heart and he could see the way the last dregs of colour drained from Jeonghan’s face at the thought of holding such a responsibility in his violently trembling hands.

“Cheol …” he stuttered, looking up at Joshua for help but receiving just as much panic in return. “I can’t, Cheol. I don’t know how.”

“Just grab and pull!” Seungcheol shouted back through gritted teeth, entire body heaving as he fought to contain the agony coursing through every pore. “Fucking do it, one of you, please!”

“Okay, but you can’t scream! Someone will hear!”

“Just do it!”

“Shua, hold him down!”

“You can’t do this! It’s dangerous!”

“Don’t scream, Cheol! Don’t scream!”

“Jeonghan!”

“On the count of three!”

“This is crazy!”

“Joshua, shut up and hold him down!”

“Please do it now! It hurts so bad!”

“One …”

“Oh my God.”

“Two …”

“Hold still, Cheol, hold still!”

“Three!”

Jihoon had never heard anyone scream like Seungcheol did at that moment.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Like Soonyoung, I have habitual shoulder dislocation, so trust me when I say that shit fucking HURTS


	9. 제 8 장

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Song Recommendation:  
> "Dionysus" by BTS

          “Hyung?” Jihoon asked as he lifted his head from the blank notebook resting on his knee, the pen hovering uselessly above it without its nib having touched the paper in the last twenty minutes.

On the other side of the hospital room, his headphones in and his head starting to droop onto his chest, Jun opened one eye and peered at the smaller boy sitting in the chair with half his blood volume pumping through a machine.

“Yeah?”

“Have you …” Jihoon paused, chewing on the inside of his lip as he tried to come up with a question that didn’t convey the suspicion and fear that was gnawing away at his insides.

The previous day had been nothing short of terrifying. He’d lain there on that platter of backpacks, concealed from view by the coats someone had layered on top of him as he’d slept, watching with frozen muscles as Seungcheol writhed on the ground.

His leader had screamed and screamed and screamed until Joshua had clapped a hand over his mouth, body bowed low over his friend and voice whispering useless words of comfort and reassurance that did nothing to soothe the pain of your bones moving beneath your skin. 

And Jeonghan had just sat there, too stunned by what he’d done to move even an inch.

Something had been going on. Jihoon knew that now. Something awful had been happening to their three eldest while the rest of them simply carried on with their lives in peaceful oblivion. Someone had hurt Seungcheol, and the other two knew who that was yet they had said nothing to anyone.

They hadn’t reported it. They hadn’t even told their dongsaengs. They had just been suffering in silence as whatever monster plagued their nightmares continued to torment them and torture them and dislocate their shoulders. 

And they were scared. They were so scared that they couldn’t even risk going to a hospital with a perfectly explainable injury.

Something was wrong.

“Are you okay, Jihoon?” Jun asked, pulling his headphones from his ears and sitting forwards slightly in his seat. Only then did Jihoon realise he’d lapsed into a strangely tense silence, midway through his question.

“Yeah,” he tried to cover up, forcing a chuckle to ease the mood. “I was just wondering if you’d noticed something off about the hyungs.”

Maybe it was a trick of the light. Maybe it was his imagination. Maybe it was from the dizziness the dialysis was inflicting on his exhausted body, but Jihoon could have sworn he saw Jun tense ever so slightly in his seat.

“What kind of something?”

And now Jihoon was sure that Jun knew too. But Soonyoung didn’t. Because Seungcheol had refused to let him be called when they’d desperately needed him the most. So if they were going by age order, it was the four eldest that were carrying this terrible secret alone.

Why didn’t they trust him enough? Had he not proved himself? Was it because he was sick?

“Is someone hurting them?” he asked, stunning even himself with the bluntness in his question as he leapt straight into the water without so much as dipping his toe beforehand. Clearly his subconscious was more desperate to know than the rest of him. “Particularly Cheol-hyung. Is someone hurting him?”

Jun was sweating. His hairline was damp, his fingers were fidgeting with the edge of his sweater but he was shaking his head with a slightly bemused smile on his face. He was a phenomenal actor. If Jihoon didn’t know him so well, he would have been completely fooled.

“Of course not, Ji,” the boy said, and it was the nickname that was just the icing on the cake. Jun was pulling out all the stops to make himself as believable as possible. “No one’s hurting him. Or any of them. They’re fine.”

He was lying. Jun was not a liar. Jun had probably never lied in his life but he was now. Whatever he was hiding was so terrible that he was breaking every moral instinct his mother had ever instilled in him to ensure that Jihoon never found out.

“Okay,” he said, and this time Jun’s reaction was obvious: relief. “Sorry, I must have imagined something. Kidney failure’s messing with my mind.”

Jun gave a nervous chuckle, nodding in agreement with the pathetic attempt for a stab at humour, and whatever awkwardness would have ensued was interrupted by Seokmin’s timely and unnecessarily loud arrival.

The boy burst through the door with a theatrical gesture of waving arms as he brandished his phone in the air, head held high and eyes closed as he absorbed whatever dramatic fanfare was playing inside his head. 

The comedic entrance was almost hilarious enough to make Jihoon forget Jun’s lies and Seungcheol’s screams. Almost.

“What are you doing?” Jun giggled as Seokmin sashayed across the room, sticking his leg out behind him in a clumsy arabesque before tripping over his own feet and thudding into the chair beside Jihoon’s machine.

He sat there, slightly frazzled by his ungraceful dismount from reality, before the shiniest grin split his golden face wide in two and he brandished his phone triumphantly in their faces.

“Guess who just got a call from the casting director of a certain professional musical production.”

There was a split second where Jihoon tried to comprehend what the hell was going on before he remembered the audition process almost a month ago that had sent Seokmin into a spiral of stress and despair so profound that they’d all tried at one point to convince him to drop out.

But apparently it had paid off.

“You got it?” Jun screeched, eyebrows shooting towards his hairline and fingers clamping down on his thighs in excited hysteria. “You got the part?”

“I did indeed.”

Jun gave another squawk of incomprehensible congratulations as he launched himself out of his chair to wrap Seokmin in the tightest of hugs, both of them jumping up and down with ill-concealed euphoria.

“I’m so proud of you, Seok,” Jihoon grinned as the two finally calmed enough to sit back down, legs still bouncing with excess energy.

And he tried to make himself sound as sincere as possible – because he truly was prouder than he could have ever expressed – but he didn’t think any news would be good enough to make him forget the way Seungcheol had finally passed out on that studio floor.  

“And you’ll be there for the opening night, won’t you?” Seokmin asked, eyebrows raised expectantly as he snapped Jihoon from his internal soliloquy. “You and both of your perfectly functioning kidneys?”

The last part finally got Jihoon laughing.

“I’ll be there,” he promised, reaching up to ruffle Seokmin’s hair.

“Promise?”

“Promise.”

“Have they given you the script yet?” Jun piped up, folding his legs underneath him as he curled back up in his chair to wait out the last few minutes of Jihoon’s dialysis. “Have you heard the songs?”

“Yeah, I’ve got them on my phone.”

The nurse came in several minutes later, just as Seokmin was playing the demo for the almighty finale. 

Jihoon barely even registered the discomfort as the needles were removed from the valve in his chest and the wires were clamped, a waterproof dressing being plastered over the area to protect the intruding object from rusting in the shower. He was too wrapped up in the music flowing through his dongsaeng’s phone.

The song fitted him perfectly. It sounded like it was composed purely for his vocals alone and Jihoon had to suppress the urge to cry as he imagined sitting in the front row at the opening night, watching the curtain rise to reveal his little brother standing on that stage, front and centre.

He would be better by then. He swore it. He would be off dialysis, his kidneys would have recovered and he would have found out what the hell was happening to his hyungs.

_… What did he do to you …_

_… You know they can’t know …_

_… He’ll find out …_

_… Hold him down …_

_… It hurts so bad …_

_… Don’t scream, Cheol, don’t scream …_

And he would have put a stop to it on the spot.


	10. 제 9 장

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Song Recommendation:  
> "Time Of Our Life" by Day6

“Seungcheol, you can’t dance.”

Jihoon heard the whisper from behind him as he crouched down to pull his water bottle from his bag, his entire body instantly tensing and his thighs cramping from their continuous crouch. 

He knew that Jeonghan and Seungcheol were just a few feet away, completely oblivious that their conversation was audible, and he hated eavesdropping. But he was scared. Really scared.

“I can’t not dance,” Seungcheol was hissing back, but his fingers were massaging his shoulder even as he spoke. “He’ll kill me.”

“But you’re just going to damage it even more.”

“What can I do, Jeonghan? Seriously, tell me what I can possibly do and I’ll do it.”

There was a stretch of silence in which Jihoon couldn’t help but hold his breath. Part of him was begging that he whip around, straighten up and tell his hyungs that he would help them.

Whatever it was that they were facing, whoever it was that was hurting their leader, he would help protect them from it. But then he would have to admit that he had been listening in on their private conversations.  

“I don’t know,” Jeonghan finally whispered and Jihoon didn’t need to turn around to know that his hyung was scrubbing his fingers through his hair in exhausted defeat. “I don’t know, Cheol. I don’t know.”

“I’ll be careful,” Seungcheol promised. “I won’t strain it. It’ll be fine, Jeonghan. It’ll be fine.”

From the front of the room, Soonyoung clapped his hands together with an unnecessarily enthusiastic holler of “Let’s get it!” and Jihoon pushed himself upright with a groan of popping joints and moan of head-rushing dizziness that washed over him.

A hand fastened on his elbow and he looked up to see Seungcheol standing beside him, staring down into his pale face with nothing but concern written in his overly tired features. It was ridiculous. Seungcheol was suffering and he was worried about Jihoon.

“Are you …?”

“I’m fine,” he said before his leader could finish his question, hating himself for the harshness to his words when he wanted nothing more than to reach out for Seungcheol’s shoulder and feel for the possibly irreparable damage he knew lay beneath papery skin. “I’m perfectly fine.”  

He wished he wasn’t. He wished more than anything that he was the only one who was hurting. 

But as he watched Seungcheol give an uncertain nod and walk across the studio to his position, cradling his arm against his chest with his head hung in an attempt to conceal pained winces, he knew that wasn’t the case.

And when he saw the way Hyeomin started towards his leader and both Joshua and Jun instantly stepped into his path, passing off their behaviour for asking innocent questions and making pathetic small talk, he knew that he had been so blindingly stupid. 

He knew he deserved the disease ravaging his bodies and withering his kidneys into shrivelled prunes of useless muscle because he hadn’t noticed their manager was abusing his best friend.

He had no idea what to do. There wasn't some kind of protocol for this. If a member was in trouble, there were two people he was supposed to go to but in this situation, one of those people was the member in trouble and the other was the one who'd put him there.

“S.Coups, sharper!” Hyeomin bellowed from the front of the studio, barely three bars into the song, and Jihoon flinched at the unnecessary volume behind the shout.

He wasn't dancing properly, only miming the moves and Hyeomin seemed to have realised by now that if he pushed, he would end up with an even sicker idol on his hands. And so the manager had gone for Seungcheol.

And that wasn't okay.

Their leader was in pain, clear as day. He winced whenever he made the slightest movement and Jihoon would have been lying if he said he hadn't seen a single tear rolling down the boy's cheek as he was concealed behind Mingyu for a single beat of choreo.

It made him want to throw up. He didn't even care about the twisting sensation creeping up his left calf due to the disgust gnawing away in his gut.

Hyeomin was standing right in front of them, arms folded, jaw set, back straight, thinking that he could get away with terrifying a boy so much that he was too scared to go to a hospital even though his shoulder was separated from his body. His body that Jihoon could now see was so much thinner than it had been just a few weeks prior.

How long had it been going on? How long had Jeonghan, Joshua and Jun known about it? Were they being abused too? Or was it just Seungcheol? Why hadn’t any of them said something to someone? Had they been threatened? Were they trying to protect their younger members? What did …

And then he was on the floor.

He hadn’t even seen it coming. The cramp had been creeping up past his knee to his thigh and he’d given his leg a few shakes between softened dance moves to try and rid himself of the pain in his muscles but all of a sudden, it was too much and he buckled completely.

There was a collective yell of his name, hands on his shoulders and worried faces swimming in his vision. His eyes were watering from the pain, his fingers clutched around his seizing limb as he tried to massage the feeling back into the fibres with little to no effect.

“It’s just a cramp!” he shouted over the terrified questions echoing in every direction, trying to calm their fears but failing through the way his agony was portrayed by his clenched teeth and screwed up face. “It’s just a cramp. It’s fine. I’m fine.”

The sensation was starting to return to him and he flopped backwards into whoever’s chest was right behind him, allowing their hands to comb their way through his hair as he heaved constricted breaths into his exhausted lungs.

His skin was prickling all over, needle-like and white-hot, but he couldn’t stop his entire body from shivering with the chills he’d thought were just the result of a broken air conditioning system. He was both hot and cold at once. His legs were aching. His stomach hurt. He felt sick. He felt tired.

But above anything else, he felt humiliated. And Hyeomin didn’t help.

“Take ten minutes, Woozi,” the manager ordered, still stood to attention at the front of the room while the useless kids he was charged with training continued to crowd and coddle their fallen member. “And then we’ll get back to it. We can’t afford to wait for you.”

Jihoon sighed, eyes fluttering closed for a brief moment of euphoria, before he reached up to accept Seungkwan and Chan’s helping levees. The two of them walked with him to the chair by the wall, making sure he was safe and settled and armed with plenty of water bottles and ice packs before they returned to their positions.

His face was burning. Whether from fever or embarrassment, he longer knew, and the helicoptering all the others were doing wasn’t helping in the slightest. But now that he was seated, given a perfect view of all that lay ahead of him, he could see what he would have otherwise missed.

He could see Hyeomin’s narrowed eyes scrutinising each and every member, as though he were waiting for them to make a mistake just so he could scream their failure to the entire building. He could see the four eldest constantly on alert, watching the younger members for any sign of exhaustion or injury and occasionally shooting their manager worried glances just to check that he wasn’t about to storm into their ranks with his meaty fists reaching for Seungcheol’s throat.

He could see that he should have seen it long ago.

But he was too exhausted to do anything.

~~~~~~~~~~~~

The bed was too hot that night. But the blankets were too thin. Wonwoo was telling him he had to leave the wet cloth on his forehead and the ice pack behind his neck but all he wanted was to get it off him and curl up under a thousand cushions.

The fan they’d set up at the side of the bed was numbing him to the core, pricking goosebumps all over sweaty skin, and someone was asking worried questions from above him.  

Something had happened in the last few days. He knew that. But he couldn’t remember what it was. He recalled its importance – it’s vitality – and he felt like it had something to do with Seungcheol but the memories were slipping away like water through cupped hands.

Words were bouncing around him, morphing and melding into each other, and none of them made sense. A number was hissed into a tense atmosphere laden with worry, a number that sounded too high, and the last blanket was pulled off him with merciless ferocity.

He only registered one more word before he was gathered against a chest and heaved off the bed, head lolling lifelessly against a shoulder, too heavy to lift. Just one word.

“…hospital…”  


	11. 제 10 장

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Song Recommendation:  
> "SUMMER!" by Pentagon

         “Do you think it’s getting worse?” Wonwoo asked from the other side of Jihoon’s bed as he and Seungcheol sat slumped in the hardback chairs, still in their pyjamas as they watched their smallest member sleeping through the fever that had spiked to dangerous levels. “I mean, do you think the bacteria spread even further? To his brain or something?”

“I don’t know,” Seungcheol whispered.

He was exhausted. His eyes kept drooping closed and he’d long ago given up trying to keep his chin from lolling onto his chest. His shoulder was throbbing and there was an agonising twinge of damaged muscle tissue every time he moved his arm, but he couldn’t complain.

Jihoon was lying in a hospital bed right in front of him, an IV embedded in the back of his hand and a heart monitor beeping steadily. The doctors had said they were running tests, that it might be nothing to worry about, but Seungcheol had a feeling that he really didn’t like very much.

He knew that at some point, he would have to call Hyeomin to explain their absence from practise the next day, and he didn’t think he would be able to handle another of those conversations with the manager he was embarrassed to say he had come to fear. All the man had to do was look at him and his spine tingled.

He didn’t want to think what Hyeomin would do to him or one of the others if he found out they had gone behind his back and taken Jihoon to the hospital at 3am the previous morning, but they’d had no choice. The boy had been burning up ever since they’d arrived home, barely coherent in his feverish mumblings, and shivering to no end.

They’d had no choice.

But Hyeomin wouldn’t see it that way.

“Mr Choi?”

Seungcheol looked up, eyelids heaving themselves open before he registered the white coat in front of him and leapt to his feet to stoop into a bow. On the other side of the bed, Wonwoo was doing exactly the same. Jihoon was still fast asleep.

The doctor smiled kindly, gesturing for them to retake their seats, before she read the sentencing. And bit by bit, Seungcheol felt his stomach shrivelling and his heart deflating.

“Mr Lee’s kidneys were affected by the infection a little more severely than we thought. His renal system is in the early stages of failure and if he continues like this, his body will no longer be able to function. We’d like to admit him to the hospital long term so that we can treat him with dialysis every day but I think it’s time to seriously consider a kidney transplant.”

They sat there in silence for a full thirty seconds, processing every word several times before it finally sunk in.

Jihoon was dying.

His kidneys were failing. He was now confined to a hospital bed, condemned to undergo dialysis every day. He needed a transplant. Major surgery to save his life. Somebody else’s organ inside his body before it completely gave out on him.

Jihoon was dying.

“Can we get tested?” Wonwoo asked tentatively, his hair ruffled and messy as though he’d just raked his fingers over his scalp a dozen times. “There are twelve of us, right? So someone has to be a match. Surely.”

The doctor opened her mouth to reply but somebody else beat her to it.

“No.”

Seungcheol looked down to see Jihoon with his eyes cracked half open, bloodshot and watering, as his weakened expression fixed on Wonwoo with delirious determination.

“What do you mean ‘no’?”

“I mean, no,” the younger boy clarified, turning his gaze instead to the doctor who stood at the foot of his bed, expression blank and neutral. “You’re not cutting any of them open. I don’t consent. You can’t do it if I don’t consent.”

“Jihoon,” Seungcheol spluttered, at a complete loss for what to say. “If it means you get better, any of us would give you a kidney. It’s possible to live without two of them, you know?”

“Your friend is right,” the doctor interjected as Jihoon continued to shake his head. “The chances of complications in a kidney-removal surgery are so low. Your family would be of no greater risk than they would be taking a flight to the US.”

But Jihoon was adamant, refusing to let Wonwoo take his hand and resolutely ignoring every single word that fell from any of their mouths.

“You’re not cutting any of them open,” he repeated. “I won’t let you do it.”

“This is ridiculous,” Wonwoo cried, looking to his leader for some assistance but receiving only despairing defeat in return. “You’re sick, Jihoon. You’re not thinking clearly. Just let us get tested and then we can …”

“I said no!”

The heart monitor spiked dangerously as Jihoon shouted, half raising himself off the pillows to emphasise his determination. Seungcheol understood what was going through his head, even if he didn’t like it. If he were in the same position, he wouldn’t let any of his members go under the knife either. Even if it would save his life.

As the leader and the eldest, it was his job to protect each and every one of them. He was already taking the beatings and the punishments for every mistake they made, refusing to let Jeonghan, Joshua or Jun step in and put a stop to it because if he ever let Hyeomin lay a finger on them, he would have to resign as a leader.

He controlled that situation. But he couldn’t control this one. If Jihoon refused to accept a transplant then there was nothing he could do. He couldn’t take the illness from him, he couldn’t alleviate his pain and this time, he couldn’t throw himself under the bus to protect him.

“If you don’t do this, you will die!” Wonwoo was shouting when Seungcheol eventually found his way back to reality. “Do you get that?”

“I don’t care!”

“Mr Lee, I need you to calm down,” the doctor tried but the other two were ignoring her, so engrossed in their argument that they didn’t even see the tears that were leaking from Seungcheol’s eyes.

“They’re just kids!” Jihoon elaborated. “I will not let them mutilate themselves because of me! I won’t do it, Wonwoo, I won’t!”

“Jihoon!” Seungcheol cried, finally coming to his senses and propelling himself out of his chair to perch on the edge of the bed, grabbing his dongsaeng by the elbows to hold him still while he stared him straight in the eye. “Listen to me.”

Jihoon fell silent immediately, his Adam’s apple bobbing as he gulped. There was something in his eyes, Seungcheol noticed now that they were in such close proximity. Something like fear, but not as if he was afraid _of_ him. More that he was afraid _for_ him. Like maybe he knew something.

“What if we didn’t involve the kids?” Seungcheol asked breathlessly, unaware when his chest had started constricting. “No one younger than you gets tested. We leave them out of it. But the rest of us do. Me, Wonwoo, Soonyoung, Joshua, Jun and Jeonghan. Let us be your hyungs.”

Their eyes were boring into each other, reading one another’s souls through the abysses in their pupils. Both were hurting. Both were damaged. Both needed help and yet both were refusing, believing in some delusion that by staying silent or letting organs shut down, they were protecting their brothers.

“Please, Jihoon,” Seungcheol begged, tightening his grip on the smaller boy’s arms as he shook him very gently to convey his sincerity. “Please let us save you.”

There was a split second as everybody seemed to hold their breaths. Even the doctor was anticipating Jihoon’s answer as the smallest boy sat there in his hospital bed with the beeps of the heart monitor slowly increasing in frequency and his expression conflicted and pained.

“None of the kids,” he finally whispered, asking his leader with his eyes to please obey his request. Seungcheol only hoped it wasn’t his last. “Promise me, hyung. None of the kids.”

From the other side of the bed, Wonwoo inhaled sharply, his body inflating with oxygen and relief. Seungcheol understood. He felt exactly the same way.

“I swear to you, Jihoon,” he implored, his face splitting into a slightly flustered grin as he looked up at the doctor, silently asking for the paperwork. “It’ll just be your hyungs. One of us has to be a match, and then everything will be alright.”

It wasn’t.


	12. 제 11 장

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Song Recommendation:  
> "Eyez, Eyez" by VICTON

        Jihoon opened his eyes and it took several moments before he remembered why his bed felt so alien underneath his exhausted body and why he couldn’t seem to move his arm without trailing a line of plastic along with it. 

Jeonghan was standing by the window, gazing through the glass panels out onto the lake beyond as he unconsciously rubbed his fingers over his wrist.

“You okay?” Jihoon croaked and the elder jumped before his face split into a forced grin and he nodded, padding across the room to take a seat beside the bed.

“I’m fine,” he said, but his voice was strained and his smile was tight. He was lying. “How are you feeling?”

Jihoon ignored the question. He didn’t want to answer truthfully and see the look of worry and heartbreak on his hyung’s face as he explained how every joint seemed to creak and groan when he moved and how breathing seemed to be harder than it ever had before.

So instead he asked, “Have you all done the tests?”

“Yeah, they took our blood this morning. The results should be back any moment now.”

Jihoon nodded blankly, eyes unfocused and on the verge of watering. He hated the thought of his hyungs putting themselves at risk – no matter how small that risk was – just to save him. 

They’d be allowing themselves to be lain unconscious and unclothed on an operating table while a complete stranger carved a vital organ from their bodies.

He hated it.

“Have the others gone back to the studio?” he whispered, suddenly processing the dramatic lack of people at his bedside.

He didn’t miss the brief flash of haunted emotion that glanced across Jeonghan’s eyes. It was almost like regret. Or fear. And one word seemed to be written across his expression as clearly as if he’d scrawled it in permanent marker. 

One word. One name.

“Hyeomin-hyung wanted them back for practise,” he forced out.

His fingers seemed to be permanently looped around his wrist, as though he were trying to hide something that lay beneath, and his skin was sunken, his eye movement slightly erratic as he tried to suppress whatever panic was building up inside of him.

And Jihoon couldn’t take it anymore.

“He’s hurting you, too, isn’t he?” he whispered, watching with a broken heart as Jeonghan’s entire body stiffened, eyebrows shooting up towards a dishevelled hairline and lungs inflating with a sharp hiss. “Isn’t he, hyung?”

“What?” Jeonghan stuttered, a smile moulding itself into his facial muscles and if Jihoon didn’t know him so well, he would have thought it was real. “No one’s hurting me, Ji. Why would you say that?”

“Because I was there,” Jihoon shot back. “I was there in the studio when you and Shua-hyung had to pop Cheol-hyung’s shoulder back in after Hyeomin hurt him.”

If Jeonghan had looked shocked and horrified before, it was nothing to how he appeared now. He didn’t even seem like he was breathing.

“I … You must have … It’s not what you …”

“How long has he been beating you?” Jihoon pushed on, mercilessly.

He didn’t care that he was ripping Jeonghan’s barriers to shreds because all he could feel was anger towards his hyungs for not trusting him enough to share such a terrible – and dangerous – secret. 

Hadn’t he done enough for them? Hadn’t he proved his loyalty and his love for them? Had they been hiding it from him because he was younger, because he was smaller or because his body was collapsing in on itself?

“I know it’s been happening to Cheol-hyung for a while but how long ago was it since he started on you? And Shua-hyung and Jun-hyung, too? I know that they know even if they’re not the ones being used as the human punching bags.”

“Ji, please, stop,” Jeonghan begged, his entire body rigid with fright and his eyes locked with his little brother’s. “You don’t know what you’re talking about. Please just stop.”

“When does it end, hyung? When do you finally say enough is enough? When one of you ends up on a spinal board in the back of an ambulance? When he starts on the others? When he goes after Chan?”

“STOP!” Jeonghan screamed, leaping out of his chair so violently that it toppled over backwards onto the floor. 

“You have no right to speak to me like that! None at all! The only thing we have done for the past three months is lie to your faces and pretend that Cheol’s not covered in bruises to protect the rest of you! So don’t you dare tell me that we’ve been selfish! Don’t you dare tell me that we haven’t thought about what would happen if he went for Chan or Hansol or Seungkwan! Don’t you dare … Don’t you dare …”

He trailed off, seemingly oblivious to the fact that he had started sobbing halfway through his tirade. Jihoon just stared at him, completely at a loss for what to say as the final strings keeping his heart sewn together were torn to shreds.

Three months. They’d been suffering like this for three months. And Seungcheol was covered in bruises. What if his bones were broken and he didn’t even know? 

What if he did know but was too scared to have them checked out in case he received another beating? Why had it taken kidney failure for Jihoon to finally realise what was going on right in front of him?

He opened his mouth to find some appropriate sentiment to expel through lips that felt numb and senseless. Guilt was gnawing at his insides but tears were pricking at his eyes and he didn’t know how Jeonghan was still standing after everything he’d been through. 

He wished Hyeomin had turned on him instead. He was already broken. What difference did a few kicks and punches make?

But before he could figure out which words to form, the door opened and the doctor peered tentatively around the frame to silently ask for permission to enter. 

Jeonghan swatted at the moisture on his face before he nodded, stepping aside to make way for the white-coated woman that glided into the room.

“Is everything okay?” she asked, picking up on the tense atmosphere and the way both boys seemed to be looking at anything except each other. “I can come back later if there’s …”

“No,” Jeonghan interrupted, slightly more forcefully than he appeared to have intended. “Everything’s fine. Have you got the test results?”

“I have.”

Jihoon froze. If the monitor beside him hadn’t been projecting his pulse to the entire room, he would have sworn that his heart had skipped a beat. This was it. He was about to find out which one of his members – if any of them – was about to allow their bodies to be mutilated because of him.

“And are any of us a match?” Jeonghan asked, slightly breathless as he reached out to grab the foot of the bed, needing something sturdy to ground him from his own anticipation.

The doctor smiled, and Jihoon already knew the answer.

“There is a perfect match, Mr Lee, for you and a Hong Jisoo.”

Joshua. It was Joshua. Pretty perfect Joshua who couldn’t afford to be scarred. Who couldn’t afford to take months off of practise to recover from a major surgical procedure. Who couldn’t give part of his body away just like that.

He would have a chunk of his hyung inside of him. The idea was disgusting.

“You promised, Jihoon,” Jeonghan suddenly choked out, and Jihoon wondered if he’d just spoken aloud. “You said you’d do it as long as we didn’t involve any of the maknaes.”

And Jihoon couldn’t contradict him. He couldn't deny him or reject him or betray him after everything the elder had endured over the past quarter of a year, all the while believing that he was protecting his brothers. He couldn’t do that to him.

“Call him,” he whispered, closing his eyes for a brief moment as he cursed God for making him do this. “Call Shua-hyung and get him down here. I need to speak to him.”

 

~~~~~~~~~~

 

           Everyone was sitting in a line the moment that Joshua got the call, their backs pressed up against the mirror behind them so they wouldn’t have to look at their flushed faces and sweaty hairlines and their shoulders sandwiched together in the hopes that they could draw comfort from each other’s bodies.

The phone buzzed in the American’s pocket and he wriggled awkwardly about for a few seconds before finally managing to extract it from his jeans. All eyes were either lazily drifting over to him or still staring blankly at the opposite wall.

Hyeomin had been working them to the bone all day, clearly taking out his frustrations on the entire group because two of his members were absent. 

This was the first break they’d gotten in several hours and all of them were too exhausted to do anything other than slump lifelessly against each other.

They hadn’t communicated in so long that when Joshua called Jeonghan’s name down the line, a few of them jumped at the surprise of a long-awaited broken silence.

“Han?”

Three beats of silence.

“Wait, are you serious?”

Now all attention was on him.

“Han, you’d better not be fucking with me.”

Seungcheol was pushing himself up from the other end of the studio, already preparing for a thorough investigation.

“Shit … I … Okay. Do they want me there now?”

Hyeomin had lifted his gaze from his phone, eyes narrowed in suspicion.

“Alright, I’m coming. I’ll be there in twenty minutes.”

He hung up, a kind of dazed expression stretched over his perspiring face as he tried to process all the emotions he was feeling: elation that he was a match, relief that he could save Jihoon and terror of what that would mean for him.

Seungcheol reached out a hand – his good one – and Joshua took it, digging his heels into the floor so that his exhausted body could gain enough momentum to stand. The two of them wavered on the spot, barely four inches apart with every pupil in the room burning holes in their backs.

“I’m a match,” Joshua confirmed and Seungcheol looked like somebody had stabbed a pin into his balloon of anxiety. 

He reached up, grabbing hold of his dongsaeng’s upper arms as though trying to convince himself that this was definitely reality. 

“I’m a match, Cheol. They need me to sign the forms today so they can schedule the procedure as soon as possible.”

“Okay,” Seungcheol finally managed to grind out. “Let’s go then.”

They turned, starting straight for the door and ignoring all the confused questions from the others as they made a beeline for their sick brother who no longer had to be sick anymore. 

But when an arm slammed into Seungcheol’s chest, they both skidded to a halt in immediate obedience as they stared up into the adamant eyes of a man who knew he held control over each and every one of them.

“You’re not going anywhere.”  


	13. 제 12 장

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Song Recommendation:  
> "Gleam" by Mamamoo

          “What?”

“I said,” Hyeomin enunciated, expression stony and determined. “That neither of you are going anywhere.”

“To hell we aren’t!” Joshua snapped, moving to sidestep his manager and make another bid for the door but the grip that fastened on his upper arm was so tight that a cry of pain slipped up his throat before he could stop it.

Seungcheol flinched, lunging forwards to pry Hyeomin’s hands from his dongsaeng and trying to shield him with his body as he backed towards where the others were now all standing stock still by the mirrors, watching the exchange before them.

“One member absent we can deal with,” Hyeomin snapped, oversized nostrils flaring in his ill-concealed anger as he watched Seungcheol position himself in front of Joshua with his hands reaching behind him to ensure his little brother didn’t try to escape. “But two is not an option.”

Joshua gave a scoff of disbelief as he half-heartedly tried to shift Seungcheol out of the way. “Jihoon’s dying and I can save him. So let me go and save him.”

But Hyeomin wasn’t letting up. He didn’t look like he was going to any time soon and Joshua could feel the panic building in his chest but he was too furious to care. 

Jihoon was lying in a hospital bed, his body shutting down slowly and painfully, and he had the power to put an end to it. The only thing that was stopping him was this pathetic excuse of a manager in front of him.

“You’ll lose your fitness.”

“I can gain it back.”

“You’d be risking your life.”

“But I’d be saving his.”

“I said no, Jisoo!”

“And what are you going to do?” Joshua yelled, finally succeeding in shoving Seungcheol aside so he could get right up in Hyeomin’s face with their noses barely an inch apart and both their tongues spitting saliva. “Are you going to hit me, too?”

“Shua …” Seungcheol called out from behind, a sliver of desperation in his voice, and out of the corner of his eye Joshua could see that someone was holding his leader back. But he couldn’t bring himself to care about that at the moment.

The room was deathly quiet. Hyeomin’s eyes were like saucers, bulging and round and bloodshot with his own fury. 

Joshua knew he should have been afraid. He knew that the man before him was strong enough to snap him in two with a few flicks of his wrist but he was done.

For too long, he had been patching up his leader’s wounds only to let him go running back for more. For too long, he had cried into his pillow as he imagined Seungcheol curling up on the floor to protect his head and abdomen from the boots and the fists. For too long, he had done nothing.

No more.

“You can’t touch me now!” he yelled, taking a step back and spreading his arms wide to expose his chest. “Because you’re not man enough to do anything when it’s not just you and your target, aren’t you? Everyone’s here! Everyone’s watching! You can’t take us all and if you try and stop me walking out that door right now, that’s what you’re going to have to do.”

He knew he sounded crazy. He knew that. He didn’t care.

“You’re not going to touch Cheol ever again. You’re not going to threaten Jeonghan. You’re not going to come anywhere near a single one of us. You’re done. And as soon as those surgeons finish cutting me open so they can save my little brother’s life, I’m calling the police.”

Hyeomin didn’t make a sound. There was some kind of hitched breathing coming from behind Joshua and he thought that maybe Seungcheol was trying not to cry. He wanted to wrap him in his arms and tell him that his suffering was over forever but there was something he had to do first.

He turned around, ignoring the abusive statue behind him, and confirmed that it was Jun who had been restraining Seungcheol. All the others were just sticks of stunned silence as their bewildered minds tried to process what the hell had just happened and Joshua didn’t have time to explain it to them.

“Jun, get a company car to take you all home. Minghao, drive me to the hospital.”

Minghao nodded, a strangled squeak bubbling up his throat as he stumbled forwards. Joshua took his arm, linking it firmly with his so that he could be certain Hyeomin wouldn’t try to wrench the boy from his grip before he barged right past the manager and out into the parking lot.

“Hyung, what was that?” Minghao whispered, eyes wide and voice constricted.

“Later, Hao,” Joshua murmured back, his free hand pressed over his heart in the hopes it would manage to slow down the terrifying frequency with which the organ was pumping. He had never been more afraid in his life. “I promise I’ll explain later. First, I need to go and lose a kidney.”

Minghao fell into obedient silence as they pounded the pavement until they reached the car, leaping onto the leathery seats and strapping their seatbelts before the younger turned the key in the ignition and kick-started the engine.

Joshua tried not to think about what he had just done. He tried not to imagine what was going on back in the studio right now. If Jun had managed to get everyone to safety without Hyeomin going for one of them. 

He knew that the kids would protect their hyungs, especially Seungcheol. Especially now that they knew what their leader had been enduring.

And he tried not to think about what he was walking into. He knew the likelihood of the surgery being that same day was slim considering how busy surgeons were and how Jihoon still had a good few weeks left in him. 

The procedure would probably be scheduled for a few days’ time and all they wanted right now was to get his consent and sign the forms but he could not shake the feeling that he was walking into something bad.

The ringing of the phone cut through the silence so abruptly that he felt his heart rate spike dangerously high before he managed to calm himself enough to answer the call.

“Yes?”

“Jisoo, you and The8 had better turn that fucking car around and get back here right fucking now or I will have you both fired!”

Hyeomin’s screams were so loud that Minghao heard them with perfect clarity even though the phone wasn’t on speaker. 

Joshua jumped, holding the device away from his ear to save his auditory nerves the unnecessary torture and his little brother glanced up from behind the wheel with an apprehensive look in his puppy dog eyes.

“Well, _hyung_ ,” Joshua spat, every ounce of venom in his voice coming from the determination never to see that look in Minghao’s eyes again. “You are done with our company. You’re done with every company. You hit idols. You hit kids. And then you blackmail and threaten them so you can keep them quiet. You don’t have anything on us anymore. Your tirade is over.”

The growl he got in return was enough to chill his blood to popsicle-temperature.

“Now you listen here, you cowardly, ungrateful, pathetic little …”

Minghao snatched the phone before Joshua could stop him, slamming the black slab to his ear with his free hand white-knuckling the steering wheel. 

What had before been fear and confusion painted over his heartbreakingly young face was now fury. Red hot and dangerous and Joshua watched with a cocktail of both surprise and pride brewing inside of him.

“No, _you_ listen,” the kid hissed. “I knew you were a dick from the moment I met you but I dealt with it because you’re not the first and you probably won’t be the last. But now I know what you've been doing, I swear to God we will do absolutely everything we can to put you in the ground. You don’t have the right to give us orders and call us names and threaten us with whatever it is that you’ve been doing to Cheol-hyung because …”

“MINGHAO!”

“SHIT!”

He had been so worked up that he’d forgotten to watch the road in front of him. 

The teenager glued to his phone had stepped into the road without even glancing at the danger that was approaching and Minghao only just managed to swerve in time to avoid him.

But the car kept going.

“MINGHAO!”

The last thing he registered was Joshua’s arm throwing itself across his chest before they ploughed into the parked truck. 

The hood crinkled like an accordion, the windshield shattered into a spiderweb of jagged glass and there was a grotesque crunch of metal on metal.   

Everything went dark after that.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> I feel like an explanation is in order:  
> I call Joshua by his stage name because in my mind, Jisoo is my bias from Blackpink so it just messes with my head when I write a seventeen fic that includes that name. Plus, Joshua is such a gorgeous name, so I hope you guys don't mind. :)


	14. 제 13 장

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Song Recommendation:  
> "Lo Siento" by Super Junior ft. Leslie Grace

Minghao surfaced from the airbag with a heaving gasp of shock and pain and terror.

There was something hot clouding his sight, sticky and wet in the way it tried to glue his eyelids together. A spot just beneath his hairline was burning and throbbing and he only realised his hands were still white-knuckling the steering wheel when his wrist exploded in agony.

He let out a choked sob, cradling the injured limb to his chest as he frantically tried to swat at the blood in his eyes. 

He could see people in his peripheral vision outside the windows as they banged on the glass, called for ambulances and shouted concerned questions and when his vision started to clear, he took in the state of the windshield and the hood that lay beyond.

Both were shattered. The metal had been crushed, the glass had been smashed and the wipers had snapped off. And all he could think was, 'Jeonghan-hyung’s going to kill me for wrecking his car.' 

“Minghao!”

He hadn’t realised his hearing had cut out until it came back to him. The ringing was dying and suddenly there was noise everywhere. And a voice. Just one.

“Minghao, talk to me!”

A hand shot out, groping desperately for his shoulder and he turned his head, wincing at the twinge in his neck, to see Joshua staring back at him. 

His eyes were wide, his nose was bleeding, his chest was heaving in barely-concealed panic and the sole focus of his attention was his little brother.

“Are you alright?” he was yelling, his free hand clawing at the seatbelt clamped around his chest and abdomen. “Can you feel your legs? Where does it hurt? Is it your neck? You shouldn’t move!”

And Minghao just started crying. His mind was riddled with the fear that had coursed through his body as they rocketed towards that truck. He could remember every single image and thought that had flashed in front of him.

_ I’m going to die. _

_ I’ll never see my members again. _

_ I’ll never know what happened to Shua-hyung or Jihoon-hyung. _

He cried because he was in pain and he was frightened and he wanted nothing more than for Jeonghan or Jun to suddenly wrench open the car door and pull him into their arms.

Then there was somebody in the backseat, calling out to him as their hands reached forwards to hold his head still. Phosphorescent green seemed to be everywhere he looked as Joshua’s hand vanished from his shoulder and a woman’s face swam in front of him.

“What’s your name, sweetheart? Can you tell me your name?”

“M … Minghao!” he sobbed as he felt the collar being wedged beneath his chin, holding his head elevated and leaving him with the sensation that his neck was being stretched like a giraffe’s.

“Alright, Minghao,” the paramedic responded kindly. “My name is Soyeon and I’m going to take really good care of you, alright? We’re going to take you to the hospital and get you checked out. You with me?”

He tried to nod but the hands either side of his head and the brace on his neck wouldn’t let him so instead he choked out a painfully weak, ‘yes’.

“Is he okay?” someone was yelling. Joshua was yelling. “Someone tell me he’s okay!”

“Hyung!” Minghao cried out, flinging out an arm in his desperation to find contact. He couldn’t turn to see what they were doing to his brother and the fact terrified him. He couldn’t see how badly hurt he was. “Hyung, are you okay?”

“You’re both fine,” Soyeon called out over their panicked voices. “You’re both going to be alright so no more crying, Minghao, and no more yelling, Joshua. You’re just getting each other worked up.”

They fell silent obediently, letting the professionals do their jobs but Minghao still found a way to snag Joshua’s hand. They both gripped just as hard, convincing themselves and each other that they were both alright. 

Their car was gone, their faces were bashed up and they were bleeding but they were okay.

“Okay, Minghao, we’re going to get you out first. And then your hyung is going to follow right behind. Are you with me?”

Minghao was about to respond; to thank her for her care and her kindness and beg her to call the rest of his members. 

He couldn’t bear the thought of being alone in that hospital bed, trussed up like a turkey in all these braces and straps they were wrapping around his body, as he tried not to imagine what was happening to Joshua. He wanted one of them by his side and he was about to ask that.

Then it happened.

Joshua screamed and Minghao had never heard someone in so much pain before. 

Not even after Hansol had broken his foot. Not even after Soonyoung had dislocated his shoulder the first time. Never had he heard a sound so broken and agonised. And he panicked.

“What’s happening? Hyung! What’s happening? What’s wrong? Tell me what’s happening! Soyeon-ssi, tell me what’s wrong with him!”

There was movement everywhere and he could no longer see that woman with the kind eyes and the gentle hands in front of him as she looped around the car to attend to his brother.

Joshua was still screaming, his fingers wrenched from Minghao’s grip and leaving his hand groping blindly at thin air as he tried to regain purchase.

“Oh, God, my stomach! It hurts! Help me! It hurts! It hurts! Please help me! Make it stop!”

Minghao’s tears were back with a vengeance as his heartrate rocketed and he shouted more questions over the sound of his hyung’s cries of agony. He was ignored. They were too busy saving Joshua from whatever was happening to him. 

His hyung was in pain. His hyung was scared. His hyung was begging for help and Minghao could do nothing.

He had never felt so powerless.

“Please tell me what’s happening?” he pleaded to nobody in particular, feeling his stomach flipping as the temptation to vomit almost overwhelmed him.

Soyeon slid into his view, those rubbery latex gloves closing on his face and wiping away the tears he was too panicked and too weak to reach himself. 

The car suddenly felt empty and it was then that he realised he couldn’t hear Joshua anymore. He couldn’t sense the movement on his right. No one was there.

“Minghao,” Soyeon coaxed, keeping her hands framing his cheeks. “Minghao, listen to me. Joshua is in the best possible hands, alright? He’s on his way to the hospital right now where the doctors are going to do everything they can. Alright?”

Everything they can. To do what? To save his life? Was he dying? Was Joshua dying?

“I don’t know, sweetheart,” Soyeon said and Minghao realised he’d spoken aloud. “But let’s worry about you right now, okay? We’re going to get you out of this nasty seat and take a ride to the hospital.”

Minghao went limp. He wondered if he even passed out, whether from exhaustion, bloodloss or panic he didn’t know. All he remembered was the crisp cold air snapping at his skin as the gurney’s wheels squeaked beneath him and Soyeon’s gentle encouragements from somewhere above. She told him he was doing well, that he was being so brave.

But he wanted Joshua. He wanted Joshua so badly.

And Joshua was hurt. Severely by the sound of it. He’d said it was his abdomen. So many precious things were in the abdomen and if he lost just one, his career could be over. His life could be over. It was then that Minghao remembered something.

The kidneys were in the abdomen, too.

~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~

Soonyoung and Chan were sitting with him when Jun came to tell them the news. It felt like they’d done a thousand scans – X-Rays, CTs, MRIs – and taken his blood pressure a trillion times but all that had been wrong with him was a mild concussion and a broken wrist. He was barely even scratched.

And now here was Jun to tell him what damage he had caused Joshua. To tell him how his reckless driving and inability to keep his eyes on the road had broken his hyung. The only person who could save Jihoon.

“Tell me,” he whispered the moment he saw the expression on Jun’s face.

He felt Chan tense from where the maknae was lying on the bed beside him and Soonyoung gave his hand the tightest of squeezes as the eldest in the room perched on the edge of the mattress.

Jun took one breath, opened his mouth, and burst into tears.

Minghao felt his blood run cold as he watched his hyung burying his face in his hands, shoulders shuddering, breathing hitched and sobs bouncing off the whitewashed walls. 

Jun never cried. Jun never showed them any kind of vulnerability because he was always trying to be strong. If he was breaking down in front of them now …

“No …” Soonyoung whispered, shaking his head slowly as he stared at Jun’s trembling figure. “God, please, no …”

Minghao was drowning in white noise. He couldn’t hear or see a thing except Joshua’s wide-eyed face in the car wreck. The car wreck that he, Minghao, had caused.

He had killed Joshua. And that probably meant he had killed Jihoon as well.

But then: “He’s not dead.”

Those words were melodious. They seemed to harmonise perfectly with each other as Jun choked them up, finally raising his face from his quivering hands to reveal a snotty nose and powderpuff eyes atop flushed cheeks. He was devastated, clearly, and if it wasn’t because Joshua had died, then what was it?

“He’s not dead,” the boy repeated, as though trying to convince himself as much as his dongsaengs. “He’s not dead. He’s not dead.”

“Then what’s wrong?” Chan murmured, clinging to Minghao’s good arm with both hands fisted in the material of his sleeve, nails digging into goosebumped flesh. “What’s happened?”

Minghao watched with a heart thudding so loudly he was surprised no one could hear it, as Jun cleared his throat and pawed at the moisture in his eyes. 

Right in front of them, he was composing himself, desensitising so that he could be as dissociated as possible when he told them whatever it is that was so desperately awful.

“The seatbelt,” he started, and then cleared his throat of the phlegm globule lodged there before he managed to find it within himself to continue. “When the car crashed, the seatbelt dug into his stomach. His kidney was ruptured and he started bleeding internally. They removed it in surgery about an hour ago.”

“Removed it?” Minghao choked, flinching as though he had been electrocuted. “You mean … He’s only got one?”

“Yes,” Jun replied, voice somehow steady as a rock despite how reddened and sore his face looked from crying so hard. “He’s only got one. Which is fine. The doctors said he’ll make a full recovery and he can live a normal life. Jeonghan-hyung’s with him right now. He’s … He’s fine.”

But something was still missing. It had to be. If Joshua was fine then why would Jun be so upset? Something was missing.

“Hyung …” he prompted, terrified that the answer would be more than he could possibly handle at this moment. “What aren’t you telling us, hyung?”

Jun stared at them, mouth opening and shutting like a dumbstruck goldfish, as he tried to gather the appropriate words. But Chan got there first.

“He can’t donate.”

Minghao blinked. Minghao tried to process. Minghao failed.

“If he’s only got one kidney, he can’t donate to Jihoon-hyung.”  


	15. 제 14 장

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Song Recommendation:  
> "Smile On My Face" by Exo

“They have to fix it,” was the very first thing Joshua said once the memories had come back and hit him like a tonne of breaks. “You have to tell them to fix it.”

Seungkwan jumped out of his skin and Jeonghan pushed off the wall he’d been leaning against with a barely audible, “Oh, thank God.”

They both settled themselves either side of him, eyes flickering to the heart monitor to check on his vital signs before they encased his papery grey hands in theirs and tried not to think about how cold his fingers felt against their palms.

“They have to fix it,” Joshua repeated, and a single tear rolled down the side of his face to dissipate into his hair. “Please get them to fix it.”

They knew what he was talking about. They just hadn’t expected to be confronted with this situation so soon after his surgery. 

The doctors had told them to be prepared for a very woozy and barely coherent blob of confusion when he came off the anaesthesia, but from the looks of things, he was perfectly lucid.

“They can’t fix it, Shua,” Jeonghan murmured as he combed a stray lock of hair behind Joshua’s ear. “They did the best that they could but they had to take the kidney out or you would have bled to death.”

“But I have to save Ji.”

Jeonghan drew in a shaking breath as he looked across the bed to where Seungkwan was fighting tears. Neither of them had spoken about the situation yet. There must have been some sixth sense in their brains that had them believing it wasn’t real so long as they never addressed it.

Because the truth was, Jihoon was dying. And now his only chance at survival had just disappeared down the drain.

“You can’t, hyung,” Seungkwan cut in, and Jeonghan was surprised that there was no hitch in his voice when he was so obviously trying not to cry. “He’ll go on the transplant list and they’ll find another kidney to give him, but we have to look after you, too. The doctor said that you …”

“Take the other one,” Joshua interrupted and Seungkwan stuttered to a stunned stop.

“What?”

“I said, take the other one,” Joshua clarified and now his tears were falling thick and fast. “I still have one healthy kidney so give him that one and put me on the transplant list.”

“Shua …” Jeonghan breathed. “It doesn’t work like that. You …”

“I don’t care!” came the hissed retort. “Without this surgery, he’ll die in the next few weeks. I can fight for longer. I have it in me. But he doesn’t. He needs this.”

Jeonghan wished he had an answer. He wished he had something more than the tears he was currently offering. He was useless and he hated himself for it. If they’d just convinced Jihoon to go to the doctor when he first got sick then none of this would have happened. If they’d just told the management the first time Hyeomin had hit Seungcheol then none of this would have happened.

“We can’t do that, Shua,” he forced out, giving Joshua’s hand a strong a squeeze as he could. “We just can’t. You wouldn’t survive a day.”

“It’s a hyung’s job to protect his dongsaeng,” Joshua whimpered. “So let me protect him. Let me save him.”

And Jeonghan knew. He knew all too well what a hyung’s job was. And now three of his members – Jihoon, Joshua and Minghao – were laid up in hospital beds because of his negligence and his incapability to do anything other than cower in a corner.

He didn’t deserve the title of ‘hyung’.

~~~~~~~~~~~~~

“So, what now?” Jihoon asked as he stared Seungcheol down from where his leader was sitting on the end of his bed, his face blotchy and eyes glassy. “What happens now?”

On his other side, Seokmin’s leg was bouncing nervously as his gaze switched between Seungcheol, Jihoon and the man hovering with a terrifyingly threatening posture and stance by the doorway. 

Hyeomin hadn’t moved for at least an hour and therefore neither had the others. They just sat, making anxious small talk in the hopes that the manager would eventually leave to get a coffee.

But that didn’t look like it was happening any time soon.

“Urm …” Seungcheol started, his shoulders rigid and tense from the alertness with which he had been sitting since realising he was the only thing standing between Hyeomin and his dongsaengs. “You’ll go on the transplant list and we … err … we …”

“We pray,” Seokmin finished for him. “That’s right, isn’t it? We can’t do anything but sit and hope and pray. Unless you let us…”

“No,” Jihoon cut him off immediately, shaking his head definitively. “You're not getting tested, Seok. I already said that.”

They lapsed into a devastated and uncomfortable silence. 

“If you’d all have just done what you were told, none of this would have happened,” Hyeomin hissed from the doorway, seeming to relish in the way none of them dared raise their heads.

They all knew that they were incredibly vulnerable in this moment. Jihoon was too sick to walk, Seungcheol’s shoulder was still causing him a great deal of agony and both of them would rather die than let Seokmin anywhere near those bulging fists. 

Jun had tried to get them all home safe and sound but then the call had come in from the hospital and everything had spiralled from there.

Now they were right back where they’d started.

“The8 will be back in rehearsals tomorrow. Even if he can’t dance with his wrist, I want him observing and learning. He’s not using this as an excuse to slack off. Woozi, you’re obviously out of the next comeback and Jisoo … We’ll just have to wait and see, I suppose. I hope you all realise how much of an inconvenience this causes the company and how …”

“Shut up!” Jihoon yelled, fisting his hands in his hair as he pitched forwards into a sitting position. “Just shut the fuck up!”

Seungcheol’s head snapped up, violently shaking from side to side as he tried to silently signal to his little brother that his mouth needed to close at once. But Jihoon ignored him. His head was throbbing, his joints were aching, his skin was burning and he just wanted the voices around him to be silenced.

“Excuse me?” Hyeomin whispered, and Jihoon didn’t need to look up to see the eyebrows raised in dangerous incredulity.

“He didn’t mean anything,” Seungcheol interjected without taking his eyes off the boy in the hospital bed, as though he were trying to put up some forcefield around him with his gaze. “He’s sick. Just give him a break.”

“No!”

“Jihoon, shut …”

“I said, no!”

Jihoon didn’t know where the courage was coming from. Maybe it was the look of desperation in Seungcheol’s eyes or the uneasiness in Seokmin’s. 

The kid was yet to experience Hyeomin’s abuse first hand, having only found out twenty-four hours ago, and Jihoon would do anything to take those expressions away.

Hyeomin wouldn’t hit a sick boy. Right? No one would hit a sick boy.

“You wouldn’t let me rest!” he continued, jabbing his finger in Hyeomin’s direction as Seungcheol seemed to be having a panic attack at the foot of his bed. “You wouldn’t let me go to a doctor and now I probably won’t make it to see my next birthday judging by how many people around the world need kidney transplants and how many kidneys there are to actually give! And then you yelled at Minghao when you knew he was driving and now Shua-hyung’s hurt too!”

“Jisoo will be fine,” Hyeomin snapped, his feet edging an inch or two closer to the bed with every fiery sentence spat from Jihoon’s mouth.

“And what about me?”

There were a few moments of silence where he stared into those eyes, greedy for money and only able to hold a teaspoon of temper before he blew up and rained his fists down on whoever was nearest. He was thinking, trying to come up with an appropriate answer because all of them knew there wasn't one.

“Doctors are good at their jobs.”

Jihoon wanted to punch him. He didn’t care that he was practically a foot shorter and probably half his weight, he wanted to ram his fist into that overly large nose and feel it crunch under his knuckles. He wanted to do something. Anything. But he didn’t get the chance.

“Get out.”

If he hadn’t seen Seungcheol’s lips moving, he probably wouldn’t have believed the leader had said anything at all. But there he was with his head hung low and his shoulders shaking with the adrenaline seeping from his every pore as he finally challenged the one person who had been the cause of all his misery for the past three months.

“S.Coups, I don’t think you …”

“I said get out! Give yourself a head start because I’m calling the police and pressing assault charges! I am done being your punching bag and I am done staying silent so get the fuck out of here before the security guards hear me kicking your ass.”

He was only able to feel proud of himself for ten seconds. Barely even that. Because Jihoon chose that exact moment to have a seizure. 


	16. 제 15 장

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Song Recommendation:  
> "Too Busy" by BOY STORY feat. Jackson (Got7)

       It was the most terrifying thing Seungcheol ever witnessed. 

To see somebody so small and pale suddenly arch backwards, chest completely rising from the mattress before every extremity seemed to be electrocuted was enough to summon a sliver of bile from his stomach. 

The monitors were screaming, Seokmin had scrambled out of his chair and scooted backwards until he hit the wall and Seungcheol could only think to do one thing. 

“HELP! HELP PLEASE!”

Even Hyeomin looked lost and maybe a little scared as his arms unfolded themselves to fall lax at his sides and his lips parted in an oval of stunned horror. 

The room was suddenly alive with different shades of blues, hands shoving them towards the doors as needles were procured from thin air and random medical slogans were bellowed above the cacophony. 

The last thing Seungcheol saw before he was forced out into the corridor and the blinds were drawn was Jihoon go completely limp against the disturbed sheets. All his bones seemed to disappear and he thudded lifelessly into silence. 

Seungcheol grabbed Seokmin, holding the boy's trembling frame behind him as he turned to face Hyeomin with his eyes streaming and his heart rate soaring. 

“Go!” he screamed at the man in front of him. “Get the fuck out of here! If I ever see your face again, I'll kill you!”

The manager - ex-manager - looked as if he were going to reply but Seungcheol didn't even let the devil's mind process his final curse. 

“Go away!” he screeched, so loudly that he thought his throat might tear but it had the desired effect. Hyeomin was gone in a matter of moments. 

“Hyung!” Seokmin choked out, his hands fisting in Seungcheol's shirt with his eyes wide and his face twisted into an expression of terror. “Hyung, what's happening?”

“I don't know,” Seungcheol whispered, shaking his head without the ability to raise his gaze from the floor. “I don't know. I don't know.”

He had just screamed at the monster in his nightmares, something he thought would have taken weeks of therapy to be able to do, and now Jihoon was… He had no idea what Jihoon was. 

But it wasn't okay, that was for definite. 

~~~~~~~~~~~~~~

… Kidney failure …

… End stage …

… Chance of a transplant …

… Slim to none …

… There’s nothing more we can do … 

… Say goodbye …

Words had no meaning. Sounds had no meaning. Nothing was anything and everything was nothing. 

Because as Seungcheol stood in the corner of the hospital room, his back wedged in the space where two walls met, and he watched as nine of his members – Joshua was still on the recovery ward and Jeonghan was with him – took their seats around Jihoon’s bed, he knew that the curtain was coming down.  

The nurse had said that usually they wouldn’t let so many people into one ICU room but considering the only thing that was keeping their smallest member alive was the oxygen mask on his face and the machines surrounding his bed, they had decided to make an exception.

The end.

That’s what the doctors had said.

If he didn’t get a transplant, he was gone.

What had started as a tiny little bug manifesting in his throat was now the thing that might kill him as it rotted away what was left of his kidneys until his blood was poisoned and his body shut down.

Seungcheol stood there and watched each one of them take a firm grip on those papery hands, as though they weren’t afraid of feeling bony fingers snap under their skin, and spill out some spiel about love and hope and the chances of a miracle.

And he wondered how the fuck they could do that.

How could they so easily accept that the world might be ending when just a few hours ago, there had still been rainbows in the sky and birds that sang in the trees and a sun that was still warm. When just a few hours ago, Jihoon had been sitting up in that very same bed and sounds had been coming from his mouth.

Someone’s life couldn’t just change in a matter of moments like theirs had. Someone’s life couldn’t just fade away like that. It wasn’t fair. It just … It wasn’t … It just wasn’t fair. But yet the others were still finding some twisted messed up way to accept it.

But he couldn’t.

“Mingyu,” the word was choked from his mouth, distorted by the sudden narrowing of his throat, but in a room that resonated with silence, it was heard perfectly clear.

Everyone turned towards him, Mingyu giving a noncommittal grunt in reply, and Seungcheol tried not to think about what Jihoon had wanted as he uttered his next words. 

He tried not to think about how Jihoon would have kicked his ass because in this moment, he was making a decision that was going to save his life. And he would willingly accept any punishment appropriate once that task had been carried out.

“Take the others and go get tested.”

~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~

“Please don’t hate me,” Seungcheol whispered, barely even able to hear himself over the rhythmic beep of the heart monitor.

He’d never really seen anyone in the ICU before. It wasn’t like they made it look in the movies. 

There wasn’t a breathtakingly handsome heartthrob lying delicately atop pristine sheets with their hands positioned neatly at their sides and their hair combed to perfection as a single tube connected them to a lone machine.

There were three tubes from what Seungcheol could see and he knew more lay beneath the covers and the polyester hospital gown the nurses had cocooned that terrifyingly skinny body in. 

Jihoon was grey. He wasn’t pale anymore. He was grey. His nails were tinged blue and his head lolled slightly to the side as if the mask on his face was too heavy to hold.

It wasn’t anything like the movies. It was a nightmare. And Seungcheol was the only one currently here to witness it seeing as how he’d sent the others to wait in Joshua’s room for the blood results.

“I’m sorry I let the maknaes do it. I really am, but they wanted to, Ji, and they’re all adults and you’re so sick and … I’m sorry.”

Jihoon’s eyes were cracked open and every now and again, he blinked at Seungcheol to show he was listening, but other than that, there was nothing. Barely even a shadow of life from a body who had decided it would succumb to a sore throat.  

“I told the company about Hyeomin. They’re dealing with it now. They asked me if I want to press charges but I don’t think I can cope with that at the moment. Not while you’re … You know.”

He trailed off, giving himself a few seconds to swallow the saliva building up in his mouth. He should be crying, he knew that. Jihoon was so heartbreakingly sick and therefore he should be bawling but he was starting to wonder whether there was any fluid left in him.

“Which is why you have to get better,” he continued decisively. “I’m not standing up in front of a real jury in a real courtroom and going over every single excruciating little detail about what he did to me while the defence lawyers tear me to pieces if you’re not going to be sitting right in front of me. And he has to go away, Ji. He has to go away forever so that he never does this to anyone else ever again. I’m the only one who can do that and I’m not doing it without you so … so you hang on, okay?”

It was cliché and predictable and unoriginal but he wasn’t exactly familiar with the whole talking-to-your-best-friend-who’s-on-death’s-door scenario. 

He wished he had some beautiful speech to recite over Jihoon’s lifeless body that would ease his spirit back into its empty shell but words had never been something he was good at. 

Jihoon was the wordsmith.

Jihoon would be so much better at this than him. If only the roles were reversed. If only it was him in that bed right now.

"I love you, Ji,” he choked out, playing with the bony fingers that allowed him to bend and twist them as the smaller boy watched with heavy-lidded eyes. “I don’t need to say that. You already know. Everyone loves you. You’re the most important member of this team – and I know as the leader I’m not supposed to say that – but I don’t even want to think about how badly we would have crashed had you not been here.”

Jihoon closed his eyes. And Seungcheol wanted to scream. 

He wanted to grab at his best friend’s shoulders and shake him until he opened those eyes and ripped off that mask and allowed his hyung to give him a hug.

And yet he found himself doing the complete opposite.

“You must be so tired, Ji,” he murmured, stroking the pads of his thumbs over his dongsaeng’s tiny little hand. “This is probably the first time you’ve had a proper rest in the last five years. There must be some part of you that doesn’t want it to end.”

That boy in the bed gave a sigh, chest heaving with a breath that seemed so final and resigned and submissive. As if he was saying, ‘okay, I’m done now’. 

“We love you, Jihoon. Promise me you’ll remember that. We love you so much.”  

The door crashed open, spewing Wonwoo’s panting figure as he skidded to a stop at the foot of the bed with his face flushed and his hairline soggy from sweat. 

Seungcheol looked up at him, opening his mouth to tell him to be silent. To let Jihoon sleep.

“Hansol’s a match.”


	17. 제 16 장

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> One more to go after this! Thank you for everything! xxx
> 
> Song Recommendation  
> "Hit" by Seventeen

             _“What would I do if I didn’t have you?_

_My heart wouldn’t have anything to lean on_

_Oh, baby, my heart was left empty just for you_

_It you look at it like that, it may seem difficult_

_But anytime you need, I will be standing here_

_Now you can think of me in a comfortable way_

_Because I’m your home, home, home, home.”_

Jeonghan had always had the most beautiful singing voice. 

It wasn’t powerful like Seungkwan and Seokmin’s and he didn’t have as much strength as Jihoon but the effortless way his vocal chords eased the melodies into existence had always made Seungcheol smile, no matter what situation he was in.

Except for this one.

One of them still heavily drugged and one of them exhausted from the trauma, Joshua and Minghao were fast asleep on the hospital bed, the dongsaeng’s head resting on his hyung’s chest as they clung to each other even in sleep. 

Clearly, they would need help overcoming the aftermath of the crash once all this was … once Jihoon was … once … Yeah.

They’d pulled the hardened retractable cot out from beneath the bed, Chan and Jun having squeezed themselves side by side on the navy mattress. 

Neither of them were asleep but their eyes were closed to avoid the concerned questions Mingyu seemed to be asking one of them every thirty seconds from where he was sitting on the window seat with Seungkwan leaning on his shoulder.

Seokmin and Wonwoo were on the floor, shoulder to shoulder, as they hugged their knees and stared off into space, probably trying to detach themselves from the harsh reality of their current predicament. 

And Jeonghan was beside Seungcheol with Soonyoung’s head in his lap as he threaded his fingers absently through the dancer’s hair and sung soft words under his breath.

And Seungcheol couldn’t smile.

On any other occasion, he would have done. Seeing his dongsaengs here together made him feel so strong. 

Watching the way they comforted each other and held each other and simply took security in knowing they inhabited the same space would usually make him grin from ear to ear. But today, he couldn’t smile.

Because Jihoon and Hansol weren’t here.  

They were lying unconscious and vulnerable on an operating table with the cold surface pricking goosebumps they couldn’t feel into their exposed skin. 

Their lives were held in the hands of a machine that beeped every so often and a tube that was supposed to know exactly how much anaesthetic was filtering through their airways.

And there were knives slicing through their skin. People with masks and gloves and big wafting aprons that were apparently clean were bending over Seungcheol’s little brothers’ bodies with blades clutched in hands that could be shaking with the knowledge of the kids who lay beneath them.

What if the surgeon was an alcoholic? That happened, didn’t it? Surgeons were fired and prosecuted for operating under the influence but only after someone had ended up permanently paralysed or permanently dead. What if Hansol or Jihoon was that someone?

And Jihoon had looked so frail.

But then Wonwoo had crashed in, yelling something about Hansol having the right blood type and tissue cells and Seungcheol hadn’t even been able to see his second youngest before the kid was carted off to the operating theatre. 

He hadn’t been able to tell him he loved him, that he was proud of him, to ask him if he even understood what he was doing. He had just let him go.

And now there was a possibility, no matter how slim, that he would never see him or Jihoon again.

 

_“Because I’m your home, home, home, home_

_The place where you can feel safe and secure”_

Jeonghan stopped singing and Seungcheol felt empty without his whispery words floating gracefully through the sterilised air. 

Now they were just sitting there in a silence broken only by Joshua’s heart monitor. A silence where all they were left to do was think about the losses they were at risk of suffering in a night where far too many terrible things had happened.

He wished Jeonghan would start singing again.

He wished Jihoon would be able to sing again.

He wished so many things for so many different people and he couldn’t help but think that the universe only granted a person one wish and he had used his up on exposing Hyeomin. 

But he would take a thousand of Hyeomin’s punishments if it meant that he could wrap his arms around Hansol and Jihoon at this very moment.

The second the door opened, every single head – save for Joshua and Minghao – whipped up to burn holes in the doctor’s white coat. 

The man faltered in place, clearly startled by so many faces turning his way and Seungcheol realised that they must look like a collection of meerkats who’d just got word that there was food nearby. 

Seungcheol leapt to his feet and was already on the verge of asking the doctor if they could step outside so he could receive the news privately when Wonwoo snapped something from the floor.

“Don’t you dare. You are not keeping us out of this one.”

Seungcheol hesitated before nodding his agreement. They had been axed from far too much information over the past few months to ever be denied anything again. 

So he turned his gaze pointedly on the doctor, silently urging him to give them either the best news they would possibly ever hear in their lifetimes or the news that would end their lives as they knew it.

“Mr Lee is stable.”

The best news. Thank God. The best news. The best news they had ever heard in their lifetimes. 

Not the news that would end their lives as they knew it. The best news. The good news. The news that Jihoon was stable.

“And Hansol?” Chan whispered from where he was clinging to Soonyoung’s hand.

The doctor just smiled back at him. “Already up and talking. The transplant was very successful.”

Seungcheol felt free. Like there had been weights tied to his feet that were gradually pulling him down towards a suffocating demise, but now this man in the white coat with the wonky spectacles had cut those tethers and he was on his way to shore. 

He would have hugged him but he didn’t want to reveal to the others how scared he had been. Not after he’d spent the last six or seven hours telling them that everything was going to be alright.

“So we can see them?”

“Whenever you’re ready.”

Everything _was_ alright.


	18. 제 17 장

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> One last hurrah. Here we go!
> 
> Song Recommendation:  
> "Gashina" by Sunmi 
> 
> Drama Recommendation:  
> "Ip Man: The Legend Is Born"

           “I think we should rename ourselves,” Seungkwan suddenly announced from the chair beside Jihoon’s bed, and his hyung looked up at him with the best endearingly infuriated glare he could muster.

“And what,” he sighed, giving Hansol a slap on his other side. “Should we rename ourselves, Seungkwan?”

“I think we should be TWENTY-THREE.”

“Why?”

“Because between the thirteen of us, we only have twenty-three kidneys.”

Soonyoung threw himself on the floor laughing as Hansol slapped his hands together like a seal with his mouth stretched so wide he probably could have swallowed a tennis ball whole and Jihoon buried his face in his hands to hide his smirk behind the pretence of exasperation.

Four days since the surgery. Four days with a newly-functioning kidney inside of him and four days trying to adjust to the fact that it was Hansol’s kidney. 

Even if Hansol was right in front of him, having been discharged the previous day, with the brightest of smiles on his glowing face, it still felt wrong. Like he had stolen something from somebody he should have been protecting.

But as he was watching the three of them now – Hansol, Seungkwan and Soonyoung – in a state of raucous laughter, he wondered if maybe he could learn to accept the new organ inside of him as long as he got to see them so happy.

And Seungcheol had just texted him saying that he’d given his statement against Hyeomin at the police station and they were on their way to arrest him at that very moment. 

And Jeonghan had called a moment ago to say that Joshua was back in his room with Wonwoo already writing him up a medication timetable and Jun was taking Minghao to his second therapy session.

And it was okay.

“Alright, I need to pee,” Soonyoung announced as he finally picked himself up off the floor, clutching at his cramping stomach and staggering towards the bathroom as tears of mirth streamed down his eyes.

“Oh, right, rub it in!” Hansol shouted in exaggerated disgust.

“What?”

“We get it,” the kid cried as he threw his hands up in the air. “You have a perfectly functioning renal system. Enjoy free peeing while you can and remember that kidney function isn’t a right, it’s a privilege.”

“I knew it!” Seungkwan screamed in triumph, pointing his finger straight at Soonyoung as Jihoon almost fell out of bed with how hard he was laughing. “You owe me ₩2,000! I told you he’d say it!”

 

~~~~~~~~~~~~~

 

           Seungcheol knew the rest of his group was out at practise when he let himself back into the apartment, toeing off his shoes and collapsing onto the couch to bury his face in his hands. 

Somewhere in the house, Jihoon, Joshua and Hansol were still resting and recovering so the frustrated scream he desperately needed to let loose had to be smothered by a pillow.

He’d just had to sit in the same room as the man who had pinned him to a wall by his throat, twisted his arm until his shoulder popped out of its socket, thrown him to the ground where he buried kick after kick into his already-bruised abdomen. He’d had to sit there, not even ten feet away from that murderous smile and those balled-up fists resting on the table.

And he’d had to describe to his management company how he had feared for his life, for his member’s lives. And therefore he had said nothing. He’d had to lift his shirt to show them the printed pattern of purple painted across his chest and tell them about that time Jeonghan had walked in on a particularly brutal punishment session and had tried to intervene.

He had to tell them how he’d almost lost his best friend to a shard of broken beer bottle that night.

But they had believed him. They had called the police, refused to listen to Hyeomin’s cries of protest and insistence that the leader of the group he was supposed to be managing and protecting was lying and then they had promised him that the next time he would be faced with that monster would be across a courtroom.

“Hey, hyung!” someone called from behind him and he whipped around, jumping violently, to see Hansol half-absorbed by a beanbag on the balcony. 

Joshua and Jihoon were on either side of him, the three of them just gazing out over the streets below with a kind of exhausted satisfaction.

Seungcheol smiled. And this time, it wasn’t forced. He pushed himself to his feet and padded out to join them, nudging Jihoon to move over so he could join him on the balloon of beans.

“How’d it go?” the smallest muttered, only just loud enough for Seungcheol to hear.

He didn’t want to mention it in front of Hansol so he just shook his head minutely from side to side and Jihoon seemed to take the hint: they would discuss it later.

“I’m sorry,” Hansol continued, a deadly serious expression on his face while Joshua was grinning from ear to ear. “But this is the congregation of the kidney deficiency society. In order to attend, you must only have half of a working renal system.”

Seungcheol chuckled, a glorious feeling after a day of choking back terror and tears, and cuffed his little brother over the head. He was much gentler than he would have been several months ago, still a little paranoid about three of his members having been so close to fatality mere weeks previously.

“Are you okay?” Joshua piped up, giving his leader the expression he knew all too well.

 _Don’t bother trying to hide,_ it said. _They all know what we went through now so you might as well just talk about it while it’s only the four of us._

And Seungcheol sighed, because he did want to talk about it. He had been waiting for Jeonghan to come home so he could offload everything he’d endured that day, but seeing the three people before him watching his expression with concern written in every feature was doing something to those protective barriers he had tried to put up around himself.

“No,” he said, surprising himself slightly with the bluntness. “I’m not okay. The doctor said I probably need surgery on my shoulder, I’ve got scars and bruises in pretty much every single area that can be covered by clothing and now I’ve got to stand up in court in front of a jury, a judge, a tonne of reporters and the man who did this to me, and try and convince them that I’m not making this up. So, no, I’m not okay.”

There was silence as he stared off into space, contemplating his predicament. And then something clicked inside of him. He reached out a hand, almost unconsciously, to fasten a grip around Hansol’s wrist, entrapped Jihoon in a one-armed hug and met Joshua’s eye from across the youngest between them.

“But at some point, I think I will be.”

Jihoon was not a snuggler, but at that moment, he buried his nose in Seungcheol’s shoulder and wrapped his arms around his leader’s stomach, closing his eyes and thanking whatever holy deity was out there that he had a family willing to endure surgery, abuse and months of rehabilitation therapy just to keep him safe.  

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Thank you for all your amazing comments and support! I love you guys!
> 
> I'm taking a very short break from this series to write a fic called "Bipolar Opposites" as a GOT7's Yugyeom-centric story but I will be back! 
> 
> Please do let me know which member you want me to write for next :)


	19. BONUS CHAPTER

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> "If you can you could try a continuation of this book but from scoups point of view. it could be about the aftermath and maybe how he isn't coping well with it and tries to hide it from the rest of seventeen"
> 
> Feran, you requested. I delivered. I hope this is what you were asking for.

In through the nose. Count … One … Two … Three … Four. Out through the mouth. Count … One … Two … Three … Four … Five … Six … Seven. In through the nose. And repeat.

That’s what Seungcheol had learnt to do when he felt the panic starting to rise, bubbling at the rim and threatening to spill over at any minute. As he waited. And waited. Waited for the pain he knew was going to come.

He heard the door click and his eyes snapped open, shoulders tensing as his hands clenched into fists from where he had them folded behind his back.

“On the ground.”

Seungcheol dropped on command, balancing on the tips of his toes and bracing his hands against the floor so he was in the push-up position, arms trembling from the effort of holding himself up when they’d already endured the same torture every night that week.

He shut his eyes, biting down on his lip and trying to distance himself from the discomfort as Hyeomin flopped into his big leather desk chair and crossed his legs, watching his victim’s face screwing itself up in pain.  

“Who made mistakes today?” he droned, as though bored. “List them.”

He couldn’t lie. He’d already learned that. Lying got him more bruises. Lying meant a harsher beating. So he had to snitch on his own members, throwing them under the bus to save his own skin.

He used to feel immeasurable guilt. Horror. Disgust at his weakness. But then he found out that Hyeomin had no interest in punishing the others. Only him. Only ever him.

“Wonwoo,” he ground out through gritted teeth, his back feeling like it was about to break. “He missed a step during ‘Getting Closer’.”

“That’s one,” Hyeomin counted, tapping his foot against the floor just beneath Seungcheol’s face. Taunting him as always. “Who else?”

“Seungkwan’s voice cracked during the bridge on ‘Clap’.”

The pain was already almost unbearable. He wasn’t strong enough for this. His shoulder was going to separate from his body. His spine was going to snap. His legs were going to give out and send him crashing face first into the floor.

“Minghao tripped on one of the turns in ‘Home’. Seokmin was joking around too much. Soonyoung started the wrong song three times on purpose.”

His breath caught in his throat as the tip of Hyeomin’s shoe pressed down on his fingers.

“And?”

“Jihoon was too sick to perform.”

“That’s six,” Hyeomin mused and Seungcheol could practically see his lip curled in distaste as he surveyed the pathetic victim at his feet. “Yesterday, it was five. You’re getting sloppy, Seungcheol.”

“I’m sorry, sir.”

“What do you think? Six screw ups … Sixty minutes? Doesn’t that seem fair?”

“Yes, sir.”

“Good. Now shut the fuck up and let me work.”

The shoe vanished from Seungcheol’s hand and he breathed a silent sigh of relief as that particular agony was retracted. Sixty minutes. One hour. That’s how long he was going to have to stay in this position. He couldn’t move an inch. He couldn’t do anything.

Otherwise he’d feel the belt buckle on his skin. Again.

His joints were screaming for release but that was something he couldn’t give them. Instead, he focused on the sound of Hyeomin’s brutish fingers tapping away at the keyboard, writing up some schedule or statement or report. He let it take over his mind, that musical tune of tiny grey squares.

It hurt so bad. So horrific. Unbearable. And it couldn’t have been more than ten minutes.

“Make a noise like that again and I’ll add another hour on.”

Seungcheol hadn’t realised the sharp inhale he’d formulated in his head had been audible, and now he didn’t know whether apologising would get him a smack. So he stayed silent. Silent as he possibly could even though his muscles were twisting into excruciating knots.

Grit your teeth. Push it down. Fight through it. Jihoon’s sick right now. He needs you to be a leader. He needs you to protect him. The others, too. Be the leader you have to be.

“I thought I told you not to move!”

The words were slurred. Hyeomin was drunk already, and Seungcheol’s assumption was only confirmed when the beer bottle shattered against the floor right in front of him, glass shards exploding outwards and slicing into the skin of his forearms.

“I’m sorry!” he choked out, blood trickling down his wrists, the first few tears bursting from his eyelids. “I’m sorry!”

The kick to his elbow came out of nowhere, the joint cracking beneath the pressure and one of Seungcheol’s only two support beams being knocked from under him. He didn’t have the energy to catch himself and so his body collapsed onto the sea of broken glass beneath him.

The scream of pain ripped through his vocal cords before he could stop it. He felt the fragments piercing his skin, burrowing into his chest and abdomen and he rolled to the side in an attempt to get away only to feel Hyeomin’s hand closing around his throat.

“Why can’t you ever do anything right?”

Flecks of spit splattered his face but Seungcheol was in too much pain to care. He could taste blood and wondered if he’d bitten his tongue or somehow managed to swallow a bit of glass but there wasn’t time to check before his head was being slammed backwards into the ground and there was a boot in his side.

Seungcheol curled inwards, bringing his knees up to his chest and trying to protect his vital organs from further harm. His arms were mutilated and bloodied but he threw them over his head to shield his skull.

The door opened.

Never once, during any of these sessions, had the door opened.

“Get away from him!”

No.

“Jeonghan …” Seungcheol wheezed, unable to raise his head and see what was happening but knowing that Jeonghan couldn’t be here. Jeonghan couldn’t get hurt. “Jeonghan, please …”

Broken glass crunching beneath sneakers.

Grunts, thumps, a scream. Jeonghan’s scream.

“Jeonghan …”

He forced his elbows beneath him, pushing upwards, pushing forwards. To Jeonghan. Save Jeonghan.

It was too late.

He was sitting there, back against the wall, legs splayed out in front of him, eyes wide, hands clutching at his stomach, blood drenching his shirt, the jagged head of the beer bottle embedded in his body.

“Jeonghan …”

Jeonghan raised his head. Their gazes connected. And his eyes rolled back. And his chin dropped to his chest. And his hands slid to the floor. He died.

And only then did Seungcheol wake up.

“Jeonghan …” he gasped out, tearing the bedsheets from his sweat-soaked body and kicking them to the floor. “Jeonghan …”

It was just a dream. He knew that now. But it felt so real.

He scooted towards the edge of the mattress, placing both feet firmly on the floor, letting his toes curl into the carpet. His hands found their way to his hair and he rested his elbows on his knees, whispering the same words over and over and over.

“In through the nose. Count … One … Two … Three … Four. Out through the mouth. Count … One … Two … Three … Four … Five … Six … Seven. In through the nose. Count … One … Two … Three … Four. Out through the …”

“Hyung?”

He whipped around, heart pounding against his ribcage, fists already clenched in case he needed to defend himself, but it was only Wonwoo sitting up in bed with his hair sticking out in every direction and his eyes squinting through the gloom.

“You okay?”

In through the nose. Count … One … Two … Three … Four. Out through the mouth. Count … One … Two … Three … Four … Five … Six … Seven. In through the nose. And repeat.

You’re okay. Everything’s okay. Hyeomin’s in jail, awaiting trial. He’s gone. You’re okay. Everything’s okay. Hyeomin’s in jail, awaiting trial. He’s gone. You’re okay.

“Yeah,” he forced out, sounding slightly breathless as he twisted his sweaty expression into what he hoped was a convincing smile. “I’m fine. Go back to sleep, Wonwoo.”

The boy complied instantly, body thudding backwards against the mattress and eyes sliding closed. He was gone in moments. Seungcheol supposed it was a good thing that he was such a heavy sleeper because even if he was awoken by his leader’s nightmares, he was still too groggy to remember them the next morning.

“I’m fine.”

It had all been a dream. Well, most of it. The punishment, the beer bottle, the beating, Jeonghan breaking the door in. All of that had happened just a few weeks ago. But not the stabbing.

Jeonghan was never stabbed.

Not that Hyeomin hadn’t tried.

But Jeonghan was never stabbed.

Seungcheol crept to the bathroom, careful with the placement of each foot in case a floorboard creaked and roused a slumbering member. He never wanted them to know about the nightmares. Never.

It was pathetic. Hyeomin was in a prison cell, bars on his window and handcuffs on his wrists. He was never coming back, he was never going to lay hands on him again so there was absolutely no reason for Seungcheol to still be so afraid.

Jihoon and Hansol had undergone surgery. They were fine. Joshua and Minghao had been in a car accident. They were fine. Jeonghan had faced Hyeomin’s wrath as well. He was fine. But Seungcheol wasn’t.

Seungcheol was the only one too weak to move on.

He braced his hands either side of the sink and stared down at the white porcelain basin. The mirror was right in front of him but he didn’t want to look. He knew what he was going to see: sweat-soaked hair, red-rimmed eyes, greying skin.

Ugly. Weak. Pathetic.

_Can’t you do anything right?_

No. It didn’t seem he could.

Seungcheol slept on the bathroom floor that night. The lock on the door was the only thing that made him feel safe, knowing that the only entrance was barred and nobody could get in. Nobody could hurt him. Nobody could torture him.

Not again.

 

~~~~~~~~~~~~~

 

          “You’re not actually okay, are you?”

The question came out of nowhere, no warning, no lead-up. Just straight in at the deep end and Seungcheol looked up from where he was gazing out the window to see Jihoon watching him from the kitchen table, arms folded and expression unreadable.

“What?” was all he could manage.

“We keep asking you if you’re okay,” Jihoon continued, leaning forwards and grabbing an apple from the fruit bowl. “And you keep saying that you are, but it’s not true, is it? You’re not okay and you’re not telling us why.”

Seungcheol just stared at him, swallowing the saliva that had started collecting in his throat. He didn’t know what to say or what to do, whether to play it off as a joke or open up and admit that Jihoon was absolutely right.

“I’m fine,” he offered up, his voice barely more than a whisper and he could see his dongsaeng nodding with his lips pursed in a thin line.

The next few words were soft, a complete contrast with his little brother’s sharp eyes.

“You don’t have to be, you know? It’s okay not to be … okay.”

“I’m fine,” Seungcheol repeated, turning away from the table and busying himself with the washing up he should have been doing before he zoned out in the first place.

“Hyung …”

But Jihoon just wouldn’t quit.

“I know that I don’t understand what … what Hyeomin did to you.”

Seungcheol closed his eyes, shoulders tensing slightly at the mention of that name.

“But that doesn’t mean I don’t understand that you were traumatised.”

Don’t answer him. He’ll go away if you don’t answer him. Just ignore him. Like everything else. The nightmares, the flashbacks, the bruises still splattered over his body. Ignore. Ignore. Ignore.

“Everyone’s been so focused on me and my recovery that they haven’t really stopped to ask you about yours.”

“I’m fine.”

“You keep saying that, and I get that you’re trying to be strong but to hell with strong, hyung!”

Now Jihoon sounded frustrated. Angry. Seungcheol had made him angry. But then the boy behind him gave a sigh. Resigned. Tired. Exhausted. Now Seungcheol had made him exhausted.

“I just want you to know that you don’t have to pretend anymore.”

He was getting up, the chair legs scraping against the floor. He was leaving, and Seungcheol was still staring down at the bubbles in the sink. He was leaving him on his own. Just like he wanted. He wanted to be alone … Right?

“I’m fine,” he whispered, almost as a reflex. “I’m fine.”

The footsteps stopped. Jihoon was looking back at him from the doorway and Seungcheol didn’t need to raise his head to see the furrowed concern in his best friend’s forehead.

“I’m fine.”

“I know,” Jihoon responded. Soft. Gentle. As though he were approaching some frightened child. “I know you are, hyung.”

Seungcheol was shaking. He couldn’t stop it. His body was spiralling out of control and now there were tears burning in his eyes and he couldn’t even blink to clear them away. The barriers were coming down. Crumbled. Shattered. Broken.

Just like him.

“I’m fine. I’m … I’m fine. I …”

His hand came up to his mouth, fingers dipping into his cracked and colourless lips. He closed his eyes and the tears spilled freely over his face, cascading down his cheeks in endless waterfalls of misery as reality finally caught up with him.

“I’m not fine.”

He sank to the floor, knees trembling too violently to keep him upright any longer, and he backed up against the kitchen counter with his arms wrapped around his legs and his shoulders heaving as he hyperventilated.

“I’m not fine. I’m not … I’m not fine … I’m …”

“I know,” Jihoon soothed and Seungcheol wondered when the boy had knelt down beside him. “I know you’re not fine. But you _are_ safe. I swear on my life, hyung, you’re safe here. Everybody loves you, everybody knows you did what you did to protect them and everybody will do everything they can to help you through this.”

Seungcheol stopped trying to choke back his sobs. He stopped trying to hide. He stopped pretending. He cried on the kitchen floor until there was no fluid left in his bruised body and when he was done, Jihoon took him back to his bed and sat with him while he slept.

Slept better than he had in months.

But he still remembered the last thing his dongsaeng had said to him before he’d plummeted into that chasm of darkness his exhausted mind was craving so desperately.

“You’re not on your own anymore.”

**Author's Note:**

> Comments and Kudos really help with my confidence and motivation so if you have a spare moment, let me know what you think. Have a great day!
> 
> Shout out to Juno because she's my baby and to Haru because she's the pillar of strength I need to regurgitate all these stories.


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